Noe Valley Voice September 2007
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More Books to Read

Karol Barske of the Voice staff and librarians Pam Ow and Carol Small have picked some whoppers for this month's reading list. Who could go wrong with Dancing Dinos Go to School or Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar...? To check out a book's availability at the public library, stop by a nearby branch or visit the library online at www.sfpl.org. Note: The Noe Valley Library on Jersey Street is still closed for renovation, but inching closer each day to its '08 opening. Meanwhile, the engraved bricks that patrons can purchase to support the library are going fast. E-mail Kim at kkdrew@yahoo.com by Sept. 7.

Adult Fiction

- Michael Tolliver Lives, the seventh in Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City" series, continues the story of the colorful residents of 28 Barbary Lane.

- European immigrants living in Canada's frigid northern territory during the 1860s populate Stef Penney's suspenseful mystery The Tenderness of Wolves, the United Kingdom's Costa Book of the Year.

- In the course of investigating a series of bombings, detective Sharon McCone discovers her husband's shadowy past, in The Ever-Running Man by Marcia Muller.

Adult Nonfiction

- Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein offer a crash course in great concepts and thinkers in the hilarious Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes.

- Norman Doidge examines neuroplasticity, the ability of the adult brain to rewire and repair, in The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science.

- In Nine Ways to Cross a River: Midstream Reflections on Swimming and Getting There from Here, Akiko Busch chronicles her four-year quest to swim--and understand--the Delaware, Connecticut, Susquehanna, Monongahela, Cheat, Mississippi, Ohio, and Current rivers.

- Pulitzer Prize­winning war correspondent Anthony Weller describes the bomb's devastation in First Into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War.

--Karol Barske of the Voice staff

Children's Fiction

- Ellen Olson-Brown's Hush Little Digger is a variation on the "Hush Little Baby" song, featuring a papa, his son, and big, tough construction trucks. Illustrated by Lee White. Ages 3 to 5.

- A sextet of green dinosaurs leap off the pages of a book and join a boy for a day of rambunctious fun in Dancing Dinos Go to School, a rhyming beginning reader by Sally Lucas, illustrated by Margeaux Lucas. Ages 4 to 6.

- The Geisel Award­winning Zelda and Ivy, the Runaways by Laura McGee Kvasnosky finds the fox sisters sharing typical childhood activities involving a backyard outing, a time capsule, and a secret concoction. Ages 5 to 8.

- The Runaway Dinner by Allen Ahlberg is the charmingly absurd story of a boy, Banjo Cannon, who is led on a merry chase by Melvin, his dinner sausage, and the rest of his meal. Bruce Ingman's illustrations add to the fun. Ages 4 to 8.

- In Richard Peck's Here Lies the Librarian, four young and attractive library school students come motoring into a small Indiana town on a day in 1914. Their arrival sparks a new look at the long-closed town library; it also changes the lives of 14-year-old Eleanor "Peewee" McGrath and her brother, Jake, in imaginable ways. Ages 9 and older. (Recommended by Noe Valley librarian Carol Small)

Children's Nonfiction

- Nature lovers will appreciate the beautiful ink-and-watercolor paintings by Sylvia Long, and the poetic, informative text by Dianna Hutts Aston, in their two books, A Seed Is Sleepy and An Egg Is Quiet. Ages 6 to 9.

--Pam Ow, Children's Librarian

Eureka Valley­Harvey Milk Memorial Branch Library

LIBRARY EVENTS

Lapsits and Story Time

- Come enjoy stories, songs, and finger plays with your baby or toddler at lapsits sponsored by the S.F. Library on Tuesdays, Sept. 4, 11, 18, and 25, at 10:15 a.m. Preschool story time, for children ages 3 to 5, follows at 11 a.m. Because the Noe Valley Library is closed for renovation, programs are held at Bethany Church, 1268 Sanchez Street at Clipper Street.

The Mosque of Paris: A Forgotten Resistance

- Dr. Annette Herskovits, who survived the Holocaust as a child in France, will tell her story, as well as present the 1991 documentary film The Mosque of Paris: A Forgotten Resistance, about Muslims' role in the struggle against the Nazis, at the Eureka Valley Library on Tuesday, Sept. 11, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. The branch is on 16th Street near Market.

- The Eureka Library also hosts morning lapsits (11 a.m.) and afternoon story times (3:30 p.m.) on Tuesdays, Sept. 4, 11, 18, and 25.