MAGIC THE GATHERING CARD GAME

A new club is forming at the Library to play Magic the Gathering.  Players in 3rd grade through 6th grade are invited to learn to play or improve their game.  
Ari Massos, a member of the Library's teen advisory board, the Teen Think Tank, will be leading the game.

Improve your game, Learn and Play

Magic The Gathering Cards 
This is an extremely fun game involving lots of 

thought and strategy, but it’s more fun than hard.

Hamilton-Wenham Library 
Phoenix room

Every Friday in November & December

Beginning Friday, November 4^th

3:45pm to 4:45pm

Hope to see you there.

Please bring your decks, 
if you have any.

REALISTIC FICTION that SHINES

Well, I began writing this post on Monday before I heard about the controversy that happened around the multiple blunders of the National Book Awards nomination committee.  All I have to say, is; the mischievous telephone spirits got it right, because Shine ought to have been on the list of nominations.  The two books below contain brilliant stories that not only entertain, they thoughtfully dig into heinous situations.

Everybody Sees the Ants, by A. S. King, 2012.
Fifteen-year-old Lucky Linderman has been continuously bullied by one boy since grade school.  The adults in his life are ineffectual, and worse - counter-productive.  After one more particularly vicious attack which literally drops him on the ground he starts to see anthropomorphic ants.  The ants become his humorous cheering section, as his mother finally takes some action and takes Lucky on a trip to Arizona to visit relatives.  Throughout the story Lucky dreams about his grandfather, who went missing during the Vietnam War.  The dreams seem to manifest things in his waking life giving the story a glow of magic realism.  In Arizona Lucky meets Ginny, who makes him tag along to play rehearsals for The Vagina Monologues.  Ginny helps him to see himself in a new way, which ultimately results in positive action in his life.  Everybody Sees the Ants is by turns funny and sharply insightful.

Shine, by Lauren Myracle, 2011.   Shine begins with a newspaper article: "Stunned residents of Black Creek, North Carolina, pray for seventeen-year-old Patrick Truman, beaten and left for dead outside the convenience store where he works....The slur written on Truman's chest, coupled with the placement of the gasoline nozzle in the victim's mouth, suggests that Truman's attack was motivated by anti-gay sentiments."  The local law enforcement have no leads, and are ready to explain away the violent assault as the crime of a chance stranger.  While Patrick is in a coma in the hospital, sixteen-year-old Cat, a childhood best friend of Patrick's, has her suspicions about what happened.  Over the course of a week, Cat who has troubles of her own that she hasn't dealt with, finds the courage to move out of her passivity and fear, to uphold the life of her friend, and eventually herself.

NEW FANTASY CLUTCH-ABLES

The following two titles are clutch-ables, because I did not want to let them out of my clutches. Both of them rate a delicious 4 and a half cones of almost perfect yummy creamy crunchy smoothness.
 

Among Others by Jo Walton, 2010.
Among Others is probably not going to draw mass readership, but if you are an enthusiastic reader of both fantasy and science fiction you won't want to miss this unique book. Keep paper and pencil handy while reading Among Others, because this girl, who loves to read, has read intelligently and deeply in the science fiction and fantasy genres, and you will find yourself wanting to jot down the titles and authors, that will constantly entice you throughout the story, to start a reading list of your own. (There should be a reading list in the back of this book, but there is not.)  On the surface, this book is about a girl, Morwenna (Mori), who has grown up in Wales, and has left there under difficult and mysterious circumstances. Mori has lost her twin sister in a car accident, and run away from her mother to find her long absent father who lives in England. She is immediately packed off to a boarding school, where she is the odd girl with a limp and a cane, who doesn't do sports. Mori joins a book club at the local public library, goes for acupuncture for her leg injury, and fights the circumstances of her sister's death.  Below the surface of the story the chilly supernatural world of spirits and faeries blows lightly through, more like magic realism than a full-on tale of faerie.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor, 2011.

An urban fantasy set in Prague harbors a talented art student who is the foster daughter and handmaid of a creature named Brimstone.  Enter warrior angels, zombie-like chimera; a parallel universe at war; star-crossed love, heartbreak and betrayal, and the story glides you across a dancing turquoise sea of the unexpected.  You will not want it to end, and will be thrilled to know that it is the first of a planned trilogy.  There is already a wait list for this one, so place your hold soon.