Each month, Typhani Russo from the Altoona Area Public Library shares her top 10 book picks that center around a specific theme. This month’s theme is Stories that “Sleigh”.
Book information and summaries cited from Goodreads.com.
All books listed are available at the Altoona Area Public Library.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS:
Book: The Magic Hockey Stick, by Peter Maloney
Synopsis:
Do you believe in magic? Tracy does. When she starts using Wayne Gretzky’s hockey stick, won by her parents at a charity auction, she suddenly becomes the best player on her hockey team. She hasn’t become a better player overnight…it’s the magic of The Great One’s stick! But while Tracy’s star is on the rise, Wayne’s is steadily dropping. He’s in the greatest slump of his entire career.
Book: The Penguin Who Wanted to Be Different: A Christmas Wish, by Maria O’ Neill
Synopsis:
When Dorothy Penguin looks down from her home atop Glacier Hill, she sees that the penguins in her village all look exactly the same! Same flippers, same beak, same black and white coat. So Dorothy sets off on a fantastic quest to find the one person who can make her different; the most magical man in the world…Santa Claus!
YOUNG ADULT BOOKS:
Book: Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Synopsis:
“I’ve left some clues for you. If you want them, turn the page. If you don’t, put the book back on the shelf, please.” Lily has left a red notebook full of challenges on a favorite bookstore shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept its dares. But is Dash that right guy? Or are Dash and Lily only destined to trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass back and forth at locations across New York? Could their in-person selves possibly connect as well as their notebook versions? Or will they be a comic mismatch of disastrous proportions?
Book: Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater
Synopsis:
For years, Grace has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf, her wolf, is a chilling presence she can’t seem to live without. Meanwhile, Sam has lived two lives: In winter, the frozen woods, the protection of the pack, and the silent company of a fearless girl. In summer, a few precious months of being human…until the cold makes him shift back again. Now, Grace meets a yellow-eyed boy whose familiarity takes her breath away. It’s her wolf. It has to be. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human or risk losing himself, and Grace, forever. Shiver is the first installment in Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver Trilogy.
Book: Snow Like Ashes, by Sara Raasch
Synopsis:
Sixteen years ago the Kingdom of Winter was conquered and its citizens enslaved, leaving them without magic or a monarch. Now, the Winterians’ only hope for freedom is the eight survivors who managed to escape, and who have been waiting for the opportunity to steal back Winter’s magic and rebuild the kingdom ever since. Orphaned as an infant during Winter’s defeat, Meira has lived her whole life as a refugee, raised by the Winterians’ general, Sir. Training to be a warrior and desperately in love with her best friend, and future king, Mather, she would do anything to help her kingdom rise to power again. So when scouts discover the location of the ancient locket that can restore Winter’s magic, Meira decides to go after it herself. Finally, she’s scaling towers, fighting enemy soldiers, and serving her kingdom just as she’s always dreamed she would. But the mission doesn’t go as planned, and Meira soon finds herself thrust into a world of evil magic and dangerous politics, and ultimately comes to realize that her destiny is not, never has been, her own.
ADULT BOOKS:
Book: Eagle in the Snow, by Wallace Breem and Steven Pressfield
Synopsis:
As the Roman Empire is crumbling in the early Fifth Century, a Legion is sent to try to hold the Rhine during a bitter winter, and keep the massing barbarian tribes from crossing. On the opposite side of the Rhine River, tribal nations are uniting; hundreds of thousands mass in preparation for the conquest of Gaul, and from there, a sweep down into Rome itself. Only a wide river and a wily general keep them in check. With discipline, deception, persuasion, and surprise, Maximus holds the line against an increasingly desperate and innumerable foe. Friends, allies, and even enemies urge Maximus to proclaim himself emperor. He refuses, bound by an oath of duty, honor, and sacrifice to Rome, a city he has never seen. But then circumstance intervenes. Now, Maximus will accept the purple robe of emperor, if his scrappy legion can deliver this last crucial victory against insurmountable odds. The very fate of Rome hangs in the balance.
Book: Holidays on Ice, by David Sedaris
Synopsis:
Mixing autobiographical details with sharp sarcasm and social commentary, Sedaris can probably best be described as a ’90s version of brilliant humorist Jean Shepherd (who did his own scathing take on the holiday season with the film A Christmas Story). Sedaris’ essays and stories are at once hilarious, heartbreaking, and thought-provoking. His new anthology, Holidays on Ice, collects three previously released stories and essays and offers three brand-new ones that all revolve around Christmas. A laugh-out-loud-hysterical look at Sedaris’s experiences working as an elf in Santa Land in Macy’s, the story is a wickedly funny slicing-and-dicing of the holiday season and the good cheer that supposedly accompanies it. His dark humor is exactly what you need when you’re getting sick of all the fuss about Christmas.
Book: Skipping Christmas, by John Grisham
Synopsis:
Imagine a year without Christmas. No crowded shops, no corny office parties, no fruitcakes, no unwanted presents. That’s just what Luther and Nora Krank have in mind when they decide that, just this once, they’ll skip the holiday altogether. Theirs will be the only house on the street without a rooftop Frosty the snowman; they won’t be hosting their annual Christmas Eve bash; they aren’t even going to have a tree. They won’t need one, because come December 25 they’re setting sail on a Caribbean cruise. But, as this weary couple is about to discover, skipping Christmas brings enormous consequences – and isn’t half as easy as they’d imagined. A classic tale for modern times, Skipping Christmas offers a hilarious look at the chaos and frenzy that has become part of our holiday tradition.
Book: A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness
Synopsis:
The monster showed up after midnight. As they do. But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting. He’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming…This monster is something different, though. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor. It wants the truth.
Book: Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly
Synopsis:
Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as “Human Computers,” calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented African-American women. Segregated from their white counterparts by Jim Crow laws, these “colored computers,” as they were known, used slide rules, adding machines, and pencil and paper to support America’s fledgling aeronautics industry, and helped write the equations that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Drawing on the oral histories of scores of these “computers,” personal recollections, interviews with NASA executives and engineers, archival documents, correspondence, and reporting from the era, Hidden Figures recalls America’s greatest adventure and NASA’s groundbreaking successes through the experiences of five spunky, courageous, intelligent, determined, and patriotic women.
