Carnegie Medal Winner Announced

The winner of the Carnegie Medal for 2007 has been announced as Just in Case by Meg Rosoff. For more information go to http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/2007awards/

Readers' Resolutions

Perhaps the wrong time of year for these!

Courtesy of Camille DelVecchio of the Penfield Public Library in New York.

1. Reread a book you loved as a child.
2. Finally read that classic you’ve been avoiding.
3. Try a book of poetry.
4. Spend a while just browsing in the library.
5. Read a book written in the year I was born.
6. Create a journal and keep notes about the books and magazines you read.
7. Read a book on the history of your city/town.
8. Read a book written from a point of view totally opposite to your own.
9. Read a book about a place you’ve never been.
10. Reread a book that you just didn't ”get”.
11. Ask a librarian to find you a book you wouldn’t have chosen.
12. Read a book written by an overseas author.

Carnegie Medal 2007 - Shortlist Announced

The books shortlisted for this year's Carnegie Medal were announced today. They are:

The Road of the Dead by Kevin Brooks Available from Library

A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd Available from Library

The Road of Bones by Anne Fine Coming Soon

Beast by Ally Kennan Available from Library

Just in Case by Meg Rosoff Available from Library

My Swordhand is Singing by Marcus Sedgewick Coming Soon


For more information on the award and this year's shortlisted books go to:

http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/2007awards/carnegie_shortlist.php

P.S. My favourite so far is My Swordhand is Singing by Marcus Sedgewick - a chilling take on the vampire myths of Eastern Europe.

St Patrick's Day

Celebrate St Patrick's Day with some Irish fiction from the Library:

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle

Paddy Clarke, a ten-year-old Dubliner, describes his world, a place full of warmth, cruelty, love, sardines and slaps across the face. He's confused; he sees everything but he understands less and less.

That They May Face the Rising Sun by John McGahern

Drama unfolds during a year in the lives of a group of characters who have come home to Ireland in search of a different life from that in London.

The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien

The country is Ireland. The girls are Cait and Baba and this is the story of their escape from countryside and convent to the alluring 'crowds and lights and noise' of Dublin.

The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin

It is Ireland in the early 1990s. Three Women, Dora Devereux, her daughter Lily and her grand-daughter Helen, have arrived, after years of strife, at an uneasy peace with each other. They know than in the years ahead it will be necessary for them to keep their distance. Now, however, Declan, Helen's adored brother, is dying and the three of them come together in the grandmother's crumbling old house with two of Declan's friends. All six of them, from different generations and with different beliefs, are forced to listen to each other and come to terms with each other.

Hidden Treasures

These are great reads which are not brand new, so you may have missed them when they were first published, but are well worth trying:

Stravaganza: City of Masks by Mary Hoffman

A magical time travel story. Lucien's father buys him a beautiful notebook, and when he falls asleep clutching it he wakes up in Bellezza, a parallel Venice. Bellezza is a city of contrasts that values magic and science in equal regard. And Lucien finds himself in a position of power, danger and intrigue as he continues to 'stravagate' between the two worlds...