The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate. Harper, 2011

Ivan is a silverback gorilla. He lives in a glass cage in a shopping mall, and is part of a mall circus that gives performances several times a day, 365 days a year. When the circus revenue drops and Stella, the aging elephant develops a disabling foot infection, the owner brings in Ruby, a baby elephant,  hoping the cute baby will bring in new customers.

Ruby doesn't adjust well, revenue doesn't increase, and the future of the circus is bleak. With the help of custodial staff, Ivan, who loves to paint pictures, takes matters into his own great hands.

This is not a maudlin story, by any stretch; it is an emotionally powerful paean to animal welfare with appealing characters, both animal and human. It is the 2013 winner of the Newbery Award for children's books.

Before I Go To Sleep, by S.J. Watson. Harper, 2011.

Imagine that, because of a tragic accident, you are unable to retain new memories. That is, the memory of everything that you do today and of what happens to you today will be gone tomorrow. Imagine this condition continuing for 20 years!

Christine doesn't know how the old woman in her mirror could possibly be herself, and has to be re-instructed every morning that the man in her bed is no stranger, but Ben, her husband of 22 years. She has no memory of the journal she's been keeping recently, but is dependent on her doctor's daily phone call reminding her of its existence and location. Nor does she know why the note in the front of the journal warns, "Don't trust Ben."

By reviewing the previous journal entries through Christine's eyes and reading the new ones as she writes them, we - and Christine - gradually piece together the story of the accident that caused her amnesia and the chilling secret she ultimately discovers.

This is a great discussion book on many levels: the frustrations of an amnesia victim, the use of the journal and of time passing to advance the plot, the ethics of manipulating the world of the victim, and the completely unexpected climax.

The Information Diet, by Clay A. Johnson. O'Reilly, 2012.

The jacket blurb states the problem:

The modern human animal spends upwards of 11 hours out of every 24 in a state of constant consumption. Not eating, but gorging on information ceaselessly spewed from the screens and speakers we hold dear. Just as we have grown morbidly obese on sugar and flour - so, too, have we become gluttons for texts, instant messages, emails, RSS feeds, downloads, videos, status updates, and tweets.

Johnson amplifies with statistics and examples, illustrating how our lives have morphed into a melange of distractions that prevent us from thinking. Insidiously, "smart" software learns what you click on most, and feeds you more of the same, and so your information diet becomes increasingly polarized without your awareness. It's the same dopamine effect that keeps you coming back to something that gives you pleasure and affirms your opinions.

His prescription for taming the onslaught of attention grabbers is designed to help us focus on what's important, mindfully select what distractions we allow, re-learn how to evaluate "spin", and develop the habit of seeking out source material and looking at the facts first-hand.

As an eager adopter of every distraction source he mentions, I have fallen prey to the very syndrome he describes. As a Librarian, I am accustomed to pointing out sources, and not foisting my own opinion on patrons who ask for help, so it was just too easy to provide what I found first, and let the patron figure it out. Now, I will remind myself to take more time to root out primary sources as well. And I'll also make the time to learn the arguments for and against major points of view, so I can form my own opinions, and not let the dopamine of affirmation guide my thinking.

State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett. Harper, 2011.

I can TOTALLY see this book as an action-adventure movie, with all the jungle sound effects!

We are asked to suspend disbelief as an incredible story unfolds. It begins with an innocuous attempt by a pharmaceutical company to get a status report from its non-communicative researcher deep in the Amazon jungle, and escalates into ever more complex wrinkles involving a death, lost luggage, stonewalling gatekeepers, an indigenous deaf child, trees that impart lifelong fertility, and human drug testing.

Patchett's language is vividly descriptive, and just enough of her characters' back-stories is given to explain their actions in the novel. Except Mr. Fox, an officer of the pharmaceutical company. For me, he remained an enigma to the end, and the one unresolved thread, among the many threads of the story. There was something slightly ominous about the company's interest in and management of the research that was never fully explained. All in all, a very satisfactory read!

The Last Dragon, story by Jane Yolen, art by Rebecca Guay. Dark Horse Books, 2011.

Now I can finally say I've read a teen graphic novel. From the time first I read Jane Yolen's "The Girl Who Cried Flowers and Other Tales," I've been enthralled by the lyrical, descriptive language in her stories, and also by the moralizing tone. The Last Dragon takes it to the next step with the illustrations.

In the country of Ingleland, there is a collection of offshore islands wherein live folk who remember tales from when dragons were a-plenty. However, dragons have been extinct for the last several hundred years. This year, in a storm, a very old tree is toppled, and the last dragon's egg nestled in its roots hatches. The baby dragon grows quickly and begins eating small animals, large animals, and finally humans. The Herbalist  is a victim, and his daughter Tansy struggles to remember what he has taught her about Dragon's Bane in order to capture or kill the dragon.

The illustrations are characteristically dark and expressive, and definitely carry the story along, becoming fierce and red when the dragon strikes, and warm and gentle during conversations. There is some plot tension, a romance, and a fitting conclusion.

Lord Byron's Novel - The Evening Land, by John Crowley. William Morrow, 2005.

 While working on a project about strong women, "Smith", Thea, and Alex investigate a single page purported to belong to a lost novel of the poet Lord Byron. This part is told through e-mails among the three, and later with "Smith's" father Lee, a Byron expert. Following a hunch, the page is linked to a collection of pages filled with numbers which are deciphered during the course of the book and presented to the reader as Byron's lost novel. Ada's real-life friendship with Babbage, inventor of an early computer, lends credibility to the enciphering scheme.

I'm not sure what to say about this novel. It was certainly written in a novel way, with three distinct voices providing Byron's semi-autobiographical novel, his daughter Ada's contextual background notes, and hints of a parallel family drama involving the four modern researchers. The author himself calls it a "piece of impertinence."

It took much longer to read this than I anticipated. I think it was because of the widely divergent styles of writing. Crowley used a suitably archaic English style and vocabulary - including alternate orthography - for Byron's novel, and an almost flippant style for the e-mail conversations. Older writing included much description, commentary, and complex sentences with little dialogue and action. The unfamiliar vocabulary provided speed bumps mandating slower reading. We've gotten away from this style, and it takes effort to stick with the convoluted sentences, but for those who do, this is a remarkably literary read.

Chanda's Secrets, by Allan Stratton. Annick Press, 2004

It's hard to know where to start in describing this powerful teen novel.  I downloaded the MP3 version last summer via the SYNC program, and just listened to it a couple of weeks ago.

Chanda is a young teen in South Africa who is faced with adult matters and decisions. Her father and brothers have died, and her mom has moved the remaining family to a different town and has remarried. In this new town, Chanda must confront the realities of AIDS and learn to deal with loss, death, and attitudes towards it all.  Her voice is real, young, questioning, and ultimately strong. I believe it is a novel every young person should read, as the attitudes and feelings, coping strategies and personal weaknesses apply to many other situations kids encounter.

Captains Courageous, by Rudyard Kipling. Amereon House, 1896, c 1897.

I read this classic in prepartion for July's Classic Movie Night @ Central Library. As a teen, I saw the movie and fell in love with the story, and especially the character of Manuel, the Portuguese fisherman, but have never actually read Kipling's novel.

Kipling, best known for The Jungle Books and Kim, among others, spent four years in the United States, and made four visits to Gloucester during that time. He was captivated by the colorful characters, language and way of life of the fishermen, and decided there was a compelling story just waiting to be written. He put Kim on hold until Captains Courageous was completed. The research for this book took him about two weeks.

Harvey Cheyne, a spoiled rich kid, is expelled from school for troublemaking. His father takes him on a transatlantic voyage in an effort to "bond" with him and set him on a better path. An on-board prank causes him to fall overboard as the liner crosses the Grand Banks, and Harvey is rescued by Manuel, of the Gloucester fishing schooner We're Here. After unsuccessfully attempting to bribe the Captain to return immediately to New York, Harvey is unwillingly schooled in the ways of a Gloucester fisherman's way of earning a living.

I didn't find the novel as engaging as the movie, but, after reading it, I understood the movie far better. Character development is much better in the book, as are descriptions of Harvey's relationships with the crew members and what he learns from the Captain and others. Kipling attempts to capture the accents of the fishermen and throws in much fishing jargon, which is explained in context in the book, but not in the film. And finally, some elements of the book are changed for the movie: Harvey's age is 15 in print and 10 in film, and his mom is alive in print and deceased in film, and his dad owns a private rail car in the book, but flies by air in film. The character of Manuel in the film plays a much greater role than in the book, due to legal restrictions at the time (1937) regarding depictions of certain occupations (priests) in a derogatory manner in film. I am glad I finally took the time to read Captains Couragous after all these years.