River Readers

Things are a bit chaotic in the Jones house at 7:15 am on the first day of school. When the doorbell rings, Carter finds that they have been sent a butler. Grandpa Jones in England has died and left enough money for his gentleman's gentleman to come serve their family in America. Carter's dad is in the military and stationed in Germany so it is just him, his mom and three sisters. Mr. Bowles-Fitzpatrick quickly gets the family settled in to a new routine. This routine includes figuring out who each of them are and making good choices. The butler spends a lot of time working on Carter.

Jocelyn is the daughter of the great Captain Hook, who she has never actually met. She has been raised by her mother's father who is finally fed up by her antics. So Jocelyn is sent off to finishing school where of course she doesn't fit in. Jocelyn doesn't want to fit in, she wants to be a pirate and avenge her father. At finishing school, Jocelyn only makes friends with the cook's boy Roger. They sneak off every chance they get to an abandoned carriage house filled with rejects from the school. There they dream about going on adventures.

I am truly enjoying listening to the Harry Potter books. Jim Dale is amazing and I am finding all kinds of small details I didn't catch or didn't remember. Makes me want to have a movie marathon!

This book is a collection of views from each of Henry VIII's wives and the king's view of each of their romances. Some very different stories than the legends we have always heard. Guess it's true there are always at least two sides to every story.

Harzfeld's was a department store that we shopped at when I was growing up. It was a higher end store and saved for special events so trips there were always a treat. I was thrilled to find this brief history of the founding of the store. I loved the pictures and the artwork and especially the memories of various employees and often their children that was at the end. It was a delightful trip down memory lane.

Despereaux is an unusual mouse right from the very beginning. He is tiny with huge ears and he doesn't act like other mice. He doesn't scurry and he doesn't eat paper. He is more likely to read a book than eat it. But his biggest transgression is the fact that he loves a human. He fell in love with Princess Pea the moment he saw her. And because of that love he spoke to her and let her touch him. These are big no-nos for mice so Despereaux is banished to the dungeons to be eaten by rats.

On August 9, 1969 Sharon Tate along with her unborn child and four others were brutally murdered by the Manson Family. At the time, the crime was one of the most heinous in American history, so much so that a deep fear set into the Los Angeles celebrity community. As terrible as the tragedy was for Hollywood, it was even more terrible for Sharon's family, her parents and sisters. Now, after forty years, members of the family finally open up about that terrible time, sharing their memories and experiences in the aftermath of murder.

Greg King with the permission of the Tate family has written a biography of Sharon Tate detailing her life before the Manson family murder spree that caused a wave of paranoia and fear to sweep through the elite Los Angeles area in 1969. After her death, Sharon Tate's reputation was ruined by gossip and innuendo based on her perceived lifestyle by the public and more particularly, the press. King sets the record straight by researching exactly what happened the night Manson family members invaded her home and committed the most heinous crime to date at that time.

Amina is a typical middle school girl in Milwaukee. She isn't comfortable speaking in front of groups and even though she has a beautiful voice refuses to sing for anyone. She becomes uncomfortable when her best friend Soojin decides to change her name to something more "American" when she becomes a citizen and doesn't like the fact that Emily is now their friend even though she has always been mean to them. To make matters worse her uncle is coming from Pakistan and they have to be on their best behavior for three months while he is visiting.

Amal loves going to school and wants to be a teacher one day. When her mother has her fifth daughter Amal has to stay home from school and help with the housework and the other children. One day in the market she has a run in with a powerful local man. To pay her family's debt she is sent to be a servant in his household. Luckily she ends up as a maid for his mother, but life away from home is not easy.

Jenna Fox was in a horrific automobile accident and Not expected to survive. She wakes up from a coma and remembers almost nothing. They have videotapes from every year of her childhood for her to view and attempt to remember. Though her parents adore her their is something they are keeping secret from her. Things just don't add up.
This book examines what it means to be human and to be mortal.

Greg King and Penny Wilson have collaborated on the drama surrounding the lives of the Russian Imperial family during their 78-day incarceration in the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg in July 1918. The authors dispel the myths that have grown out of the often confused and fabricated stories of those days from both sides, the Bolsheviks and the monarchists, as well as the fog of secrecy with which the subsequent Soviet government shrouded the most famous and infamous royal execution in history.

"I don't want to arrest anyone. I just want to shoot somebody."--Mike Hammer Everybody loves a mystery, and nobody solves them like Mike Hammer. While other detectives bend and manipulate the law, Hammer holds it in total contempt, seeing it as nothing more than an impediment to justice, the one virtue he holds in absolute esteem. Now, the no-holds-barred private eye returns, along with his gorgeous secretary, Velda, and a collection of New York City characters, in two fully dramatized "theater-of-the-mind" audio adventures.

Calvin Coolidge nicknamed "Silent Cal" was President of the United States from 1923-1929. Although at the time he was considered somewhat "old-fashioned", Coolidge was actually a very modern President who believed in the advances of modern technology particularly the new automobile industry and the birth of American aviation. He was known first and foremost, however, for reducing the federal budget and had a keen insight into the foreshadowing of the Great Depression in the years before it occurred.

Sunny is the third book in Jason Reynolds' Track series and it is probably the most personal of them all and the least about track. Sunny is the team's mile runner and decides he doesn't want to run anymore. He has been running for is mom who died giving birth to him and not for himself. What he would really like to do is dance, but he still wants to be part of the team. So Coach sets him up as the discus thrower. The book is set up as a series of diary entries as Sunny deals with his feelings about his mom, running and his dad.