October Books

 FICTION

 

The yellow birds / Kevin Powers

"The war tried to kill us in the spring." So begins this powerful account of friendship and loss. In Al Tafar, Iraq, twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloody battle for the city. Bound together since basic training when Bartle makes a promise to bring Murphy safely home. . . . As reality begins to blur into a hazy nightmare, Murphy becomes increasingly unmoored from the world around him and Bartle takes actions he could never have imagined. (www.amazon.com)

If you enjoyed The things they carried, try this.

Artemis Fowl : the last guardian / Eoin Colfer

 Seemingly nothing daunts the young criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl. But Opal Koboi, the evil pixie, has reanimated dead fairy warriors who were buried in the grounds of Fowl Manor. Their spirits have possessed Artemis’s little brothers. Artemis has until sunrise to get the spirits to vacate his brothers and go back into the earth where they belong. Artemis Fowl fans will be gasping up to the very end of this thrilling finale to the blockbuster series. (www.amazon.com)

Momentum / Saci Lloyd

London, the near future.  Oil prices have gone crazy; there are daily blackouts. Cruel Kossak soldiers prowl the streets, keeping the Outsiders - the poor, the disenfranchised - in check. Hunter is a Citizen, one of the privileged of society. But when he meets Outsider Uma, he is quickly drawn into their world and efforts to protect everything they hold dear.

   
(www.amazon.com)

The dogs of winter / Bobbie Pyron

When Ivan's mother disappears, he's abandoned on the streets of Moscow, with little chance to make it through the harsh winter. But help comes in an unexpected form: Ivan is adopted by a pack of dogs who care for him and become his family. Based on a true story. (www.amazon.com)

 

A soldier's secret : the incredible true story of Sarah Edmonds, a Civil War hero / Marissa Moss

A fictionalized account of a true story.  Sarah Emma Edmonds masqueraded as a man named Frank Thompson during the Civil War. Among her many adventures, she was a nurse on the battlefield, a spy for the Union Army, and was captured by (and escaped from) the Confederates. (www.amazon.com)

A maze me / Naomi Shihab Nye

An original collection of poems for girls that record Nye’s observations about nature, homes, school, and neighborhood.

She wishes that humans had "something / we could / all sing / together, yes."

Hoping that a guy will notice her, she wonders: "Does he see me gleaming / in my chair?"

Nye encourages readers to write three lines in a notebook every day: "You will find out what you notice. Uncanny connections will be made visible to you." (www.amazon.com)

NONFICTION

From the series "America's Decades," each book contains 7-to-10 page essays that cover the defining domestic and international events of the 1960's and the 1980’s --  popular culture, science and technology, domestic economy and politics, and international affairs.(www.amazon.com)

 

Zora!: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Dennis Brindell Fradin and Judith Bloom Fradin

Zora Neale Hurston was an extraordinary writer. Unfortunately none of her books sold more than a thousand copies during her lifetime. Hurston’s work has been discovered by contemporary readers, and she is considered an important figure in American literature.