Shelf Life [adult]

Make Your Brain Smarter By Sandra Bond Chapman, Ph.D

@SPL: 153 Cha

We all know the phrase “use it or lose it”. Most times, relates to physical conditioning or skills, but rarely does one think of it in terms of mental conditioning. However, working out the little grey cells of the brain is just as important for overall health – perhaps even more so. Atrophying muscles is one thing, but atrophying the brain that moves them is arguably worse. As the popularity of websites like Lumosity shows, people are becoming more and more concerned with keeping their brains active and engaged in order to increase creativity, focus, to assist with attention deficit disorders and to stave off age-related neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s Disease.  Dr. Sandra Bond Chapman, a renowned neurologist, now gives us another tool for brain fitness, in her book Make Your Brain Smarter. Slightly insulting title aside, this is a very readable, non-medical-jargoned self-help book about the brain and its functions.  Specifically, it is about the executive functions of the frontal lobe, and how these functions and our neuroplasticity can be improved at any age (and not just with crosswords and Sudoku, either).  Indeed, the good doctor provides chapters and exercises geared specifically for different age ranges (although they are all fascinating) and for “rewiring” the brain after injury or neurological incidents like a stroke.  Each chapter is dotted with tips and factoids, with sections on strategy, reasoning, creativity and exercises to strengthen each; and while it may be tempting to go straight to the section in which you want to improve, the first part of the book involves giving yourself the “neck-up-check-up” first, just to see where your strengths already are (you may be surprised at the outcome).  In case you are worried that the doc is all bunk, check out the full list of research notes in the back, and the websites both for the book and the Centre for BrainHealth, where Dr. Bond Chapman is currently the director.  This is a fascinating read, by an enthusiastic and optimistic doctor bent on getting everyone to optimizing their brain power. 

This review appears in The Stratford Gazette on February 27, 2013. Written by Robyn Godfrey, Librarian.

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Shelf Life [kids]

Celebrating Dr. Seuss! 

   

Few names have become as familiar to children and parents as that of the beloved author/illustrator, Dr. Seuss.  From his first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street ( published in 1937)  to his last, Oh, The Places You’ll Go!, published 50 years later, Theodor Seuss Geisel’s picture books have always aroused a sense of wonder and excitement on the part of children who read or listen to them.

   

February 25 to March 1 is “Dr. Seuss Week” in the United States this year - an appropriate time to reflect upon the origins of some of his best-known stories.

   

You may not know that The Cat in the Hat was actually written in response to the traditional “Dick and Jane” readers.  Seuss was challenged by a director of Houghton Mifflin Publishing to create an easy-to-read story which children would actually want to read (instead “the mind-numbing dullness of Dick and Jane and their mundane lives that consisted mostly of watching Spot run.”) Years later, Seuss said that he took great pride in helping to oust the Dick and Jane stories from many American school libraries!

   

Then Seuss was asked to create a fun-to-read children’s story using no more than 50 unique words – a seemingly impossible task. The wildly successful result was the beloved story,Green Eggs and Ham.

   

Some of his books, although seemingly nonsensical, reflected Seuss’ own social and political views.  The Sneetches reflected his views on racial equality; Yertle the Turtle, his mistrust of dictators such as Adolf Hitler; The Butter Battle Book, his anxiety about the arms race, and The Lorax expressed his disgust with consumerism and anti-environmental practices. (The book became a rally cry for environmentalists, but the logging industry claimed that TheLorax - which spoke about the wanton destruction of natural resources such as trees - was unfair. In fact, the lumber industry actually commissioned a children’s book to present the opposite point of view!)

   

Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, published in 1957, was also a criticism of consumerism - particularly of Christmas-season consumerism. (In this tale, the Grinch and his dog stole all the Christmas presents, dinners and decorations in Whoville, anticipating that the Whos would be devastated and their Christmas ruined. When the Whos continued their happy celebrations instead, the Grinch realized that Christmas means much more than presents and feasting.)

 

Perhaps one of the most surprising truths about this iconic author is that he almost wasn’t an author!  That’s right – his first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was rejected no less than 27 times by the publishing industry, until Vanguard Press finally accepted it.

   

The world of children’s literature owes a huge debt to Vanguard Press ... and to the fertile imagination and wit of Theodor Seuss Geisel, sixteen of whose books are on the Publisher’s Weekly’s list of the “100 of the Top-Selling Hardcover Children’s Books of All Time”.

   

If your favourite Dr. Seuss book isn’t on the shelves of the Stratford Public Library at this time, you can make a request for it online, by email, by phone, or in person.  The Library offers various biographies about this notable author, such as The Seuss, the Whole Seuss, and Nothing But the Seuss by Charles D. Cohen – or you can visit the database Somethingabout the Author, available from home or in the library.   

This review appears in The Stratford Gazette on February 28, 2013. Written by Sally Hengeveld, Librarian.

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Systems Upgrade March 4

On Monday March 4 the library will be closed for a systems upgrade. During that time, the library catalogue, BiblioCommons, will not be available, nor will access to your library account in downloadLibrary. 

We apologize for the inconvenience.

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Updates to OverDrive in downloadLibrary

On Thursday February 28 OverDrive will launch the Next Generation platform for downloadLibrary.
Below is a video demonstrating what this new platform will look like for library users.

The downloadLibrary website has step-by-step instructions to help you get your materials with ease after the switch.

What are the major differences?

• Fewer clicks to download 
• Symbols on the top right of the cover art indicate format type and if a title is available for immediate checkout
• You can interactively recommend that the library purchase specific titles
• Includes new READ feature with the "See book, Read book" tagline. READ allows users to read ebook content in their web browser without checking an item out, loading software or activating a device.
• Account page has a new layout for improved user-friendliness

The best way to get to know the Next Generation and READ is to play. Hop online, browse materials and download. If you have questions the Library is happy to help and don't forget to visit our download site for more information and useful tips.

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Freedom to Read Week

February 24 - March 2, 2013 is Freedom to Read Week in Canada. This week (and really every week), Canadians are encouraged to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom.

The Stratford Public Library likes to think that we have something to offend everyone. We collect books, magazines and dvds on all different subjects - including those titles most frequently challenged.

Here is a listing of many of the books that have been  challenged over the past few decades and are in our collection.  Have you read any of them? What did you think? Share your thoughts in our library catalogue.

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Shelf Life [adult]

Speaking From Among the Bones by Alan Bradley
@SPL: FIC Bradl

If you’re already familiar with the Flavia de Luce mysteries by Alan Bradley, you’ll want to read Speaking From Among the Bones, the fifth book in the series. If you haven’t yet encountered Flavia, you have lots of great reading ahead of you, starting withThe Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Flavia de Luce is a precocious 11 year old who lives in the English countryside, in the1950s. She has two difficult older sisters, a distant father, a deceased mother, and lives in a crumbling old family mansion, Buckshaw. The five books in this series take us through a year in her life, a year which is strangely full of dead bodies.

Throughout the Buckshaw Chronicles, we’ve encountered Flavia’s particular interest in chemistry and in sleuthing. In this book, there is additional character development, a clever mystery, some détente between sisters -- and one heck of a cliffhanger ending as well.

Flavia is intrepid and uses her age and gender as a decoy in her investigations. Along with her trusty bicycle, Gladys, she travels the countryside and solves local murders, to the chagrin of the local Police Inspector. In this volume, Flavia is instrumental in discovering the whereabouts of the missing church organist, Mr. Collicutt. Unfortunately, he is already dead. And occupying the long-closed tomb of the church's patron saint, St Tancred.

This sets off a whirlwind search for clues and patterns, with Flavia encountering two other amateur sleuths on the case (both adults), deliberating on the history and existence of holy relics, meeting people who mistake her for her long-lost mother Harriet, ruminating about her place in both her own family and the wider world, crawling through the muck of mysterious graveyard tunnels, falling into mortal danger, and creating new chemistry experiments to prove her theories... just to name a few of her activities!

There is a great deal of action in this story, with a tangle of characters to follow. Yet Flavia is still the heart of the story, and in this book she seems to have more heart, somehow. She is becoming ever so slightly more self-aware as her world is changing around her. The family is on the verge of losing Buckshaw, and eldest sister Feely is shortly to be married and leave the family circle altogether. These things give Flavia an edge of anxiety that she doesn't necessarily recognize in herself, but which add depth to her character.

Flavia de Luce was a delight to read about right from the beginning, and book five has topped even the excellence of the previous four books. It is finely written, amusingly acerbic, full of personality and pathos, and leaves us wanting book six rather desperately! An excellent entry in this series.

This review appears in The Stratford Gazette on February 21, 2013. Written by Melanie Kindrachuk, Librarian.

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Shelf Life [kids]

Goliath: Hero of the Great Baltimore Fire, by Claudia Friddell, 32 pages.

@ SPL:  J 97526043 Fri

    

The Great Baltimore Fire, in February 1904, was one of the most destructive in North American history.

    

Starting in a dry goods warehouse, it spread quickly and was soon out of control. Hundreds of firemen, policemen, soldiers and citizens battled the flames for three days and nights. By the time the fire was over, 140 acres and 2500 businesses were destroyed.  Miraculously, no lives were lost.

    

However, many lives would definitely have been lost in the disaster if not for a massive Percheron named “Goliath”, a “fire horse” with Engine Company #15.

    

Earlier in the day, firemen had noticed that the horse seemed strangely restless. Could he sense something?

    

When the alarm rang, the firemen and fire horses were on their way in seconds.

    

Soon after arriving at the fire, a huge explosion ripped through the warehouse. A large group of firemen found themselves trapped on a narrow, dead-end street by the resulting inferno. It was only the massive strength of Goliath, who dragged the fire wagon out of the street to safety, which saved the firemen and the other horses from a horrible death.

     

The fire jumped from rooftop to rooftop and spread throughout the city. Despite serious burns and other injuries, Goliath stayed and fought the flames for 55 long hours without rest.  Not until the fire had burned itself out did he stop.

    

Six long months of recovery followed before Goliath could return to fight more fires.

    

Two years later, the City of Baltimore held a parade to celebrate their newly rebuilt city, led by Goliath, a hero. Thousands of people lined the streets to cheer this courageous horse which had saved so many lives.

    

Before he died at the age of 20 years, Goliath led many more parades in Baltimore - and helped to fight many more fires. 

This exciting, true story of dedication and courage in the face of danger is very nicely enhanced by the large, colourful illustrations of artist Troy Howell.

** Recommended for ages 5 to 8 years.

Molly the Pony: A True Story, by Pam Kaster, 48 pages.

@ SPL:  JE Kaste

    

Pam Kaster’s new book relates the true story of a little pony, Molly, who showed courage and resilience in an entirely different way than Goliath.

    

Abandoned during Hurricane Katrina, Molly was trapped for two long weeks in a barn before being rescued and taken to a new home on a horse farm.

    

Her troubles, however, weren’t over. One day, she was attacked by a large dog and one of her front legs was so badly injured that it had to be amputated.

    

At the animal hospital, the veterinarians decided to try a surgery which is rarely attempted on a horse or pony.  Because they thought that Molly was up to the challenge, they decided to fit the little pony with a prosthetic leg and foot.

    

Molly had difficulty walking on her new leg at first, but after weeks of practicing hard, she was able to trot around the farm quite easily.

     

Then Molly was given an important job. She became a therapy pony,  making regular visits to a children’s hospital and a retirement home where she cheered and inspired both young and old with her quiet presence, allowing people to pet her and touch her prosthetic leg.

    

Molly’s touching story of survival, perseverance and friendship has been adapted for beginning readers in this “easy reader’, complete with lots of photos.  A wonderful story for a child and an adult to share, it would be an especially good choice for a child who is facing a serious adversity in his or her life.

** Recommended for ages 5 to 8 years.

This review appears in The Stratford Gazette on February 21, 2013. Written by Sally Hengeveld, Librarian.

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Shelf Life [adult]

Swimming with Dolphins, Tracking Gorillas: How to have the world’s best wildlife encounters

By Ian Wood

@SPL: 590.723 Woo

There is something about the snow-thaw-freeze cycle of winter that makes people yearn to get away, but this is not the kind of book you will find in the travel section. The focus of this book is to get to those spots not of endless sunbeams and sand, but the rather more elusive spots where condors ride thermals, komodo dragons lurk, and alligators lazily swim by kayaks. Of course you can see such creatures in zoos or wildlife parks, but it just is not the same thing as seeing a creature in its natural habitat – lemurs just don’t stink-fight with the same vigor in captivity, doncha know.

This guide from Bradt travel – one of the leading publishers of books for off-the-beaten-path travelling – has itineraries for going places in any month of the year. Yes, some of the locations for February and March are sunny (diving with bull sharks in the Bahamas, for instance), but as often locations are a little more Canadian-like, i.e. tracking wolves in Romania is best done in February as well. The contents are arranged by habitat (forest, marine, etc) and there is a cross-referencing index for the months in which sightings for specific animals are eventful.

For each excursion listed in this guide – a walking trek to find snow leopards in India for example, now on my bucket list – author and National Geographic contributor Ian Wood compiles information on what one can expect of the encounter, tips for best (and careful) sightings, other critters likely met along the way, vital statistics on the highlighted animal and websites for further fact-finding before you go and tours to get you there.  The accompanying photographs are glossy and gorgeous and might have you booking a walking safari in Kenya before you can say Loxodonta Africana (Latin, for African Elephant).  

This review appears in The Stratford Gazette on February 14, 2013. Written by Robyn Godfrey, Librarian.

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Shelf Life [kids]

Crosby’s Golden Goal, by Mike Leonetti, 32 pages.

@ SPL: JP Leone  

Few Canadian hockey fans will ever forget Sidney Crosby’s “golden goal” – the overtime goal that whipped into the net past Team USA goalie Ryan Miller, breaking a 2-2 draw in Canada’s favour during the gold medal final hockey game at the Vancouver Olympic Games on February 28, 2010. Team Canada players, fans and countless Canadians cheered and celebrated Canada’s winning of the men’s hockey gold medal that day. The euphoria lasted for days, even weeks.

    

Mike Leonetti’s newest picture book relives the excitement of that game as seen through the eyes of a young boy, Tyler, who is lucky enough to be in attendance.

      

A minor hockey player, Tyler has recently grown a little tired of the large amount of time that competitive hockey – with its games, travel time, practices, summer hockey training and off-ice workouts – requires. He’s decided to stop playing hockey – but is still an enthusiastic hockey fan, especially of Sidney Crosby.

    

As Tyler watches the game with his father, he sees Crosby’s obvious love, enthusiasm and dedication to the game of hockey. He witnesses the team spirit, the happiness and exuberance of the Team Canada players when the winning goal is scored, and he remembers similar happy times with his own fellow players. He decides to rejoin his team, and later scores his own winning goal in his team’s first tournament. 

    

Wonderful illustrations and a brief biography of Sidney Crosby are included at the end of this exciting sports story of dedication and perseverance, which will appeal to young hockey players and fans of any sport.

    

Mike Leonetti is the author of a long list of books which celebrate Canada’s rich hockey history, such as The Magnificent Mario, Number Four Bobby Orr! and Gretzky’s Game.

** Recommended for ages 6 to 10 years.

Hockey Science: 25 Winning Experiments, by Shar Levine and Leslie Johnstone, 47 pages.

@ SPL: J 796.962078 Lev

    

Did you know that science and math play an  important part in the game of hockey?  It’s true! Many methods and techniques adopted by the NHL in its never-ending quest to improve the game of hockey come straight from the world of science.

    

One example is “telescoping”. When a goalie moves away from the hockey net towards a player who is taking a shot, it’s a calculated move called “telescoping”, in which the goalie is trying to cut down on the number of angles which a player has to shoot at the net, making scoring more difficult.

    

Kinetic energy and geometry are behind the way players shoot pucks against the boards around the ice, influencing the speed and the angles at which pucks bounce back.

    

Readers will discover why hockey pucks are frozen before every game, why “torque” is studied in order to help players skate faster, and how scientific principles are used to improve checking, goalie reflexes and helmet safety.

    

Ever practical, Hockey Science also explains how smelly bacteria forms on sweaty hockey clothing in a hockey bag or locker – and how to prevent it.

    

A helpful glossary completes this concise book of intriguing information and related easy-to-follow experiments.

** Recommended for ages 7 to 11 years.

This review appears in The Stratford Gazette on February 14, 2013. Written by Sally Hengeveld, Librarian.

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Blind Date With A Book and CBC Radio 1

Two weeks of fun, Under-the-Covers!

February 14-28

Come into the library to meet your match!

We’ve selected some hidden gems from our collections that are looking for their perfect match. Each one is wrapped with a classified ad that hints at the delectable book under-the-cover.

The best part of your blind date is – no hurt feelings, and you get to tell us all about it, even if your date is a dud!

“Rate your date” and you’ll be entered into a draw for some truedate-worthy prizes from our sponsors: Flowers-on-York, Stratford City Centre and Chocolate Barrs.

Stud or dud? You never know until you take a chance on that blind date with a book!

Visit our website or come into the library for more details and to get started.

Robyn Godfrey will be interviewed on CBC Radio 1 on Valentine's Day, Thursday February 14 at 7:20am. Want to listen in?
Stratford and London: 93.5 FM
Kitchener and Waterloo: 89.1 FM
On your smartphone try the free TuneIn app. Or visit CBC Radio 1, Ontario Morning website, and select "Live Stream" on the mid-right.

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone! Come celebrate with the Stratford Public Library!

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Family Day Closure

Just a friendly reminder that the library will be closed this coming Monday February 18 for Family Day.

Enjoy your time with someone special!

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Shelf Life [adult]

On Extinction, by Melanie Challenger

@SPL: FIC 576.84 Cha

On Extinction, by Melanie Challenger, could be a tricky book to sell midwinter. A coworker of mine asked me to summarize On Extinction, and we decided this is a book you would read if you really, really want it to feel like February. It is not what you could call uplifting, is what I’m getting at. Try to contain your surprise.

That said, it’s not what you could call flatly depressing, either, and it certainly is an absorbing, fascinating read. Melanie Challenger has taken on an ambitious project here, and for all the heavy subject matter, the book as a whole holds a certain sweetness.

Broadly speaking, On Extinction is a meditation on the logical conclusions of industrialization. More than just considering lost species or the latest global warming statistics, Challenger opens up a philosophical discussion of what nature means, and how that meaning changes when nature becomes a resource for making profit. Challenger travels the world’s most remote regions – areas where industrialization has still not completely taken hold – to witness human interaction with the natural landscape, and how it changes as industrialization influences lifestyles. She notes that extinction of languages and extinction of species are often concurrent victims of a globalized industrial lifestyle.

A good portion of her argument centres on nostalgia. She debates the evolutionary and neurochemical origins of the emotion, and the role it may play in helping us moderate our behaviour in relation to the natural resources we have to hand. She analyzes the role nostalgia plays in her own life, driving her to become more familiar with the flora and fauna populating her own ancestral home in rural England. She acknowledges missing the piece of her identity that would formerly have been composed of language of wildflowers and other hyperlocal phenomena. She does this without losing sight of the portion of her identity composed of the minutiae of an industrialized existence. Challenger balances a sense of loss - acknowledging some losses are necessary for healthy change - while managing to establish that our current rate of change is not healthy for us or the planet as a whole.

While On Extinction may not be an uplifting read, it is a sweet, elegiac, thoughtful one rendered in some very pretty language. It’s recommended to readers concerned with environmental issues, and especially to those readers craving a more thoughtful, less bombastic argument in favour of treading lightly.

This review appears in The Stratford Gazette on February 7, 2013. Written by Shauna Thomas, Librarian.

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Shelf Life [kids]

Chinese New Year, by Catherine Chambers, 30 pages.

@ SPL:  J 394.261 Cha    

One of the most important holidays throughout China, Taiwan and Hong Kong (as well as in various North American communities) is the Chinese New Year, which this year falls on February 10 and begins the “Year of the Snake”.   

Celebrated with many days of festivities which include fireworks, parades, dancing, special foods and presents for children, the holiday is a time for families to reunite. It concludes with the traditional Lantern Festival.

The Chinese New Year is a fascinating holiday in part because of the rituals, superstitions and taboos associated with it. For example, people do not houseclean or bathe on New Year’s Day – at least, in traditional households - for fear of washing away the wealth that the gods may have left for the household. (On the other hand, it is the only time of year when gambling isn’t frowned upon!)

This book brings the lights and exuberance of this festival alive for young readers with its descriptive text and its many colourful photographs. One of the titles in the Festivals and Faiths series, it explains the origins, beliefs and the practices associated with the holiday in a way that is meaningful for children.

Note:  Children can find more information on the holidays and culture of this intriguing country in books such as Mary Colson’s Chinese Culture and Lynn Peppas’ Cultural Traditions in China, also at the Stratford Public Library.

** Recommended for ages 7 to 11 years.

This Child, Every Child: A Book about the World’s Children, by David J. Smith, 36 pages.

@ SPL:  J 305.23 Smi

Did you know that there are more than 2.2 billion children in the world?  That’s approximately one-third of the world’s total population!

Of those 2.2 billion children, nearly 80 million do not attend school – some because they lack access to a school, others because they can’t afford school fees, or they must work instead – or because they are girls. Yet the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child asserts that each and every child on our planet has the right to a good quality education and should be encouraged to go to school.  

According to the Rights of the Child, children also have the right to be protected from work that is harmful and detrimental to their health. Yet many of the world’s children work in places that are far from safe, and in fact, some children are even drawn into wars as soldiers.

Children also have the right to the food, water and medicine that they need to be healthy – and again, many are denied these necessities.

In David J. Smith’s book, the many differences and similarities of children around the world are described against the context of the United Nations’ Rights of the Child - and it is evident that the living conditions of many children, especially in Africa and South America, don’t even begin to meet these standards.  

Readers will discover how very much the lives of children vary across the globe - and also how they are similar.  Explanations of the various declarations in the Rights of the Child are written in child-friendly language in this informative, sensitive book, and striking illustrations by Shelagh Armstrong will help to draw young readers into the lives of other children around the world. 

This Child, Every Child is one title in the series “CitizenKid”, which informs children about the world and inspires them to be better global citizens.  

** Recommended for ages 6 to 9 years.

This review appears in The Stratford Gazette on February 7, 2013. Written by Sally Hengeveld, Librarian.

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