This YA/Adult graphic novel is a finalist for the national Book Award.  David Small is a widely celebrated children’s book illustrator and is also a Caldecott winning artist.  He is also recognized for his work that regularly appears in the New Yorker, the New York Times and many other publications.  Stitches is a profound and moving memoir using predominantly black and whitewash drawings to depict his life growing up in Detroit.  David narrates the story starting at age 6 and the story follows him through early adulthood.

 David is the youngest in his family and is born with sinus problems which his doctor father attempts to cure with repeated radiation treatments.  Ultimately, this causes David to develop cancer and later he is operated on to remove the growth in his neck along with his vocal cords--all leaving him unable to speak.  He is never told he has cancer and finds out by reading a letter locked in his mother’s desk one day.  In addition to all the health problems, his mother is frustrated, angry, and abusive and eventually David will discover a dark, hidden secret about her.

The shadowy drawings portray his story in a dream like sense, but the image of his scar after the surgery is especially disturbing.  Stitches is also a profound metaphor for how David’s family members hold together their outwardly normal but unhappy lives.  This is a  somber story that leads to a hopeful and eventually happy and successful life for David Small.

Barb Farrell Swenson, Children's Librarian

I’m not much for scary movies, but give me a spooky book any day.  Depending on my mood, I can make it as bloodcurdling or as my mild-mannered as my imagination will let me.

 “The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane” by Katherine Howe delivers this perfectly.  Written by a descendant of the Salem Witch Trials, Howe has written an intriguing book that begins with the premise that the women accused of witchery were actually practicing the craft.  The main character, Connie, a Harvard doctoral student in American history, has been requested by her mother to clean out her grandmother’s old house in Massachusetts and stumbles upon items that make her question her heritage and believe that she had discovered another witch who was prosecuted in the Salem Witch Trials.  The plot moves easily between the settings of Connie’s 1991 New England and the late 16^th century of Deliverance Dane and her daughter Mercy to deliver a very interesting page turner.

For a psychological thriller, I heartily recommend Phillipa Gregory’s ,“The Little House.”  Known for her historical fiction, Gregory has written a contemporary book that deals with marriage, post-partum depression and the most horrific mother-in-law who makes this book’s ending one of the more memorable in recent history.

A truly blood-curdling, stay up all night and read under the covers book, is “Ghost Story” by Peter Straub.  Although four men hope to repress a violent act from their past, revenge has come in the shape of a ghost to torture them fifty years later.  This book had me jumping out of my skin for days.  Straub starts out by asking “What is the worst thing you’ve ever done? Do not miss out on this classic supernatural tale.

Patty Sussmann, Reference Librarian

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Gramm:  A newspaper reporter gets sucked into the disappearance in 1925 of the explorer Percy Fawcett, his son and a friend.  After doing research all over the world into the exploration of the amazon, he heads to South America to try to find the answer to the mystery disappearence.  The book was very well researched, with interesting history of the area and the indiginous tribes, but was enjoyable to read, not dry like some books.  I know one thing after reading this book, I am never going into the jungle.  Must read.

Jennifer Smith, Head of Children's Services

As the leaves start changing into beautiful colorful hues this fall, my thoughts happily turn to the thought of freshly baked pies. As a pie lover, I was attracted to the title of this debut novel by Alan Bradley named, “Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.”  This is not a cookbook on delicious pies but a Crime Writer’s Debut Dagger Award winner, featuring the memorable character of Flavia De Luce, an 11 year old with a passion for chemistry and detective work.  When a mysterious man is found poisoned in her family’s garden and her father is arrested for the crime, Flavia takes it upon herself to singlehandedly find the killer. Bradley had woven pies, a dead crow, and stamp collecting into one delectable read that is surely worth reading, perhaps with a piece of  pie.

If you are looking for a cookbook on pies, I heartily recommend two titles by Susan G. Purdy, a pie genius, “As Easy as Pie “and “The Perfect Pie” located at 641.8652 PUR.

Do you remember keeping a diary when you were younger?  Imagine if it was found almost fifty years later.  Would you want your innermost thoughts revealed?  That’s exactly what happens in The Red Leather Diary by Lily Koppel. Koppel, a writer for the New York Times, stumbles upon an old red leather journal that was getting trashed in the dumpster outside of her apartment.  In between its covers, the thoughts of a young woman from the 1930’s come to life.  Are her thoughts that different than the thoughts of young women today?   Does Lily ever track down the owner of the diary?  Find out by reading this fascinating biography located in call number B HOWITT in the new biography section.

Patty Sussmann, Reference Librarian

Ayelet Waldman manages to touch a nerve and a funny bone in her new book, Bad Mother: a Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, & Occasional Moments of Grace.  Waldman, a Harvard Law School graduate and former Assistant D.A., is now a stay-at-home Mom and author.  She is raising her four children in progressive Berkeley, California, along with her stay-at-home husband of 15 years, who incidentally is the novelist, Michael Chabon.  In a series of 18 controversial essays, she covers varied topics such as breastfeeding, her relationship with her feminist mother, parental compulsions to produce super-star children, abortion, balancing career and motherhood, sex education, and schoolyard dodge ball.  Her wickedly funny observations do not spare the strident Berkeley group of Moms who proselytize breastfeeding and the family bed with the zeal and rigidity of the religious fundamentalist.  With scathing wit and honesty, Waldman advocates setting high standards for oneself to be a good Mom but allowing for the wisdom of self-forgiveness for the inevitable mistakes.  (Find it in the Library under New Adult NF 813.6WAL.) 

 Judy Lipstein - Circulation Staff