 Hi, this is Pam from the Billie Jean King Main Library. And I'm Jeanine from the Mark Twain Library. Welcome to Chapter Chat, our monthly conversation highlighting new books from our elementary and middle school collections airing the second Wednesday of every month. We will each talk about four new books that have arrived on our shelves within the last six months. So let's begin and we will start with you take it away Pam. Hi. Yes, I have the newest version of Alice in Wonderland called the Lost Wonderland Diaries and I've read all of the others. So this is a great addition to the rest of the variations. This is a story of Celia, who is Charles Dodgson, otherwise known as Lewis Carroll. This is great, great, great granny so it seems only natural that he, she would find his lost diaries, and she not only finds them, but she finds a mysterious green bottle. But before that, she has made a new friend named Tyrus. I just moved to San Jose, California with her mother, who's going to be the librarian there. And which is not a great thing for Celia because she has dyslexia and the last place she wants to be is a library. But excuse me but it's there that they find the box with the diaries, and they open one up, and then they find the bottle. And we've had to solve a great puzzle to get to that point, but then they drink from the bottle. And the next thing they know there in Wonderland, not the Wonderland that we know, but a scary dark place. It's decaying it's depressing, but there's one rabbit Sylvan who's probably a descendant of the original white rabbit. And she declares that Celia is the Alice who's going to save Wonderland, but all Celia wants to do is go home she doesn't want to fight battle she doesn't want to get involved. And they meet, she and Tyrus me familiar characters who are all but unrecognizable. The Cheshire cat has become a mechanical cat. The pair is not at all a nice person, nice rabbit. No one is what they're supposed to be. And as they get closer and closer to the true culprit becomes more and more evil. But there's also a lot of nonsense that kind of lightens the story. But between Celia's logic and Tyrus's imagination, they may just be able to restore Wonderland and make their way home, but a teaser at the end hints that they may just go through the looking glass next. So these are the last Wonderland diaries by J Scott Savage. Very cool. Very cool kind of reminds me of land of stories to going into into a book, discovering a new land that's kind of different than you expected. Very cool. So, okay, my first book is this one. So this one is a clockwork crow by Catherine Fisher. And so, oh, yeah. It's okay. It's okay. If you need to you can always mute to no big deal. Alrighty. So, this book is about 12 year old orphan sarin, sir, sarin, who recently lost her aunt, and is about to board a train that will take her to her godfathers godfather and his family's estate. So this family consists of Captain Arthur Jones, Lady Mayor, and their son, Master Thomas, sarin cannot wait to meet all of them and feel and feels what and feel what it's like to actually have a whole family care about her. They actually live on an actual estate, a big mansion, as she waits for the delayed train and daydreams about the lovely family she's about to live with a strange tall man appears in the waiting area. And he has a package wrapped in a newspaper in newspaper in his lap. He becomes frightfully worried about what is lurking nearby as they hear a bird like cry in the distant, and it's getting closer and closer. The tall man is so scared that he fears for his for their safety and knows that if they see the parcel he calls them they, they will take it away. So he asks sarin to watch over the parcel while he figures out what's going on and what to do. And then he makes her promise to never ever assemble what's in the parcel and what's in the package, and to never ever leave the package unattended. So who is this they, we don't really quite know. Why is he so scared of them. We don't know yet either. Well, sarin doesn't stay long to find out. So as the strange man disappears her train to Wales, finally arrives. She has, she has no choice but to bring the package with her on the train, even though she had such a strange experience that she was so she's still so excited to meet her new family. However, that excitement was very short lived when she finally arrived at the at the manor at the mansion and and finds out that none of the family members are there. It seems that Captain Arthur and Lady Mayor, they're actually overseas somewhere in London. And master Thomas is definitely not home. I'm wondering what where he could be, because he's not with them. Instead, sarin was greeted by the housekeepers. One of them, Mrs. Villiers, I think that's how you pronounce it, has been extremely rude to sarin for from the very beginning. I scold her with every mistake that sarin makes and enforcing strict rules, such as not wandering around the grounds or outside of the grounds or never going outside to go down to the river. But one rule that she totally enforces is to never go upstairs to the ad. Funny thing is though sarin is a very curious person. And throughout her stay at this manor. Sarin finds out that the captain and Lady Mayor are actually in London on business and their son Thomas is mysteriously disappeared. It's just missing. He's just he's been missing for quite a while. On top of all of all this, she then finds out that the package that she had a curious person. What do you think she's going to do. She's going to go ahead and open it. So when she opened it, she actually found pieces of a mechanical crow. And guess what she does, she decides to put it together. And when she does put it together. It becomes a magical mechanical crow that can talk, and also claims to be a prince who was cursed to be in this, this make this like a little toy machine in a way. So she and guess, guess what he's also so rude to her. She didn't really have very good luck with the nice, nice polite people so anyways. So, because she put him together, she made, she kind of implies that you know I did you a favor. So you have to do me a favor. You have to help me find out what's where Thomas is a master Thomas, and find out about this mysterious disappearance. Sarah must find a way to make this crow help her to find out as much as she can because apparently this crow knows more than she, she thinks she thinks it knows. So, will she be able to solve the mystery and find Thomas. Will she actually know what it feels like to have a loving family. Well, you got to read it to find out. It's very interesting. It's a family. I know. I hope some people are more polite to her. No, it's tough. Yeah, this is a very serious book called soul lanterns by shock kuzki. It's translated from the Japanese. And it's the story of the citizens of Hiroshima. And each year they release paper lanterns with the names of loved ones who are were lost in what they call the flash, which was the bombing. And at the 25th anniversary 12 year old nosomy is once again at the ceremony with her mother who's releasing balloons. A lantern sorry. And one of them has no name it's a white lantern there's no name so she has no idea who who is supposed to represent. She's in an art class, and her class decides that they're going to do a group project on Hiroshima, then and now. And so what they do is they, they go around in the interview survivors and loved ones of, of those who are finished. And they find out the stories, and it's, it's just, it's very tragic but as they do that they, they do paintings they do sculptures. They write poems, and, and as they hear they they find out that the survivors are filled with regrets over their last words or their last actions, and never realizing that person would, they would never see that person again. And it's, it's sometimes it reads like a first hand account, rather than a story, because you know that actually happened those are based on actual stories. And one mother writes, may the world that your generation lives and be peaceful. I hope with all my heart. May there never be foolish ideologies that bind free minds lurking there. She wishes for peace. And I, I would say this would be a great book for book clubs to discuss or for teachers to use when they're teaching about war, and the consequences the after effects, the emotions that are still very very deep, even decades later, it never goes away the pain. But if you want to know who the white lantern is for, you'll have to read the book. So this is soul lanterns by shock kusky. This will be in the middle school section. Yes, I forgot to mention the clockwork crows. The last book that one's in children's fiction so very cool very cool. I know that'd be a good one to do for book club during like Asian American Heritage Month or something that'd be cool. Alrighty, so this one. This one is called the sea in winter, like Christine day. So you can find this in our children's fiction section, but I might consider changing it to middle school. The only thing that kind of I'm why I'm hesitate hesitant of doing that is because the artwork kind of doesn't look like a cover for middle school, but she is the main character in this book is in seventh grade. So, I'd say elementary and middle schoolers would probably enjoy this one. Nice. So this book is about seventh grader mazy con cannon recovering from having to undergo surgery from a traumatic knee injury while practicing ballet that this is like her only passion in life to. So it's really, really traumatic. Her entire life revolved around ballet. It was all she wanted to do for the rest of her life. Her friends actually were in her ballet class at the studio. And they actually don't attend her school so technically now that she doesn't have ballet. She really doesn't have any, any friends, technically to socialize with. And the ballet studio was her, literally her like her, he's her sanctuary, if she could she would eat, sleep and breathe ballet, if she could. Her dream seemed to be slipping farther and farther away after from her from her after she tore her ACL on that day full day and had to go through start surgery. Not only is her dream slipping away from her the traumatic experience really starts to affect other aspects of her life. Her grades in school start to decline. She starts to lash out at her parents. She also starts to push her ballet friends away. I mean that's kind of typical right you know you don't want to think about the ballet you don't want to think about the traumatic experience you start pushing your loved ones away. So, but hope starts to be restored when her physical therapist notices a lot of progress, because she did all the exercises and she saw the physical therapist twice a week. You know it pays out, it pays off right. The best news that she's had in a long time, especially since she knows that there are ballet tryouts to be recruited for recruitment to one of the top ballet schools in the country in New York City this spring. Even though our physical therapist is hesitant to have her try out she's going to do whatever she can to not miss that try out she'll do whatever it takes. She especially will not let anything come between her and her family's hiking trip to her stepfather's native home this coming weekend. As I mentioned Maisie is actually Native American. Maisie's father, her biological father, who was Piscataway was deployed to Afghanistan during the war and unfortunately died in combat. Her mother is Macaw, and Maisie's stepfather is a citizen of the lower elwalk clap clap column. All three of them including her half brother Connor feel this is what they need they all needed they need to get away go on a hiking trip and get out of the house and everything kind of forget about all the traumatic experiences that especially the one that she had to go through. Well, but as they continue on their trip, more of her dark emotions and extreme anxieties come out. The author does a great job at highlighting Native American history and culture. I began to learn about a lot of historical moments that had happened like when the Macaw nation were given permission to hunt a gray whale in 1999. After the species was taken off the endangered species list. And then there was also black backlash that came from that. And also how they how, and also how that brought them brought them together as a community. They were able to go ahead and go on this hunting trip and actually hunt together and kind of it brings it brought so many of the different people in the community together. This gives the reader so much information about the Native American tribes have done what they what they have gone through. And the author Christine day, who is also upper sketch, sketch, I'm sorry, schedule, schedule, yeah, upper schedule, managed to do extensive research on a lot of these events. This is an emotional story, and I highly recommend it. And I think what what I really remembered the most from it is one of the quotes that said, hurt people hurt people. It seems like it was repetitive, it's repetitive, but it makes sense, especially since you know obviously she's hurt, not just physically but inside as well mentally as well. And, you know, she starts to really lash out and, you know, starts to hurt the people that are really close to her. So, it's interesting. I highly recommend it though is really good. Well, you can tell right away that this is a Disney book. And this is Delphine and the Silver Needle by Alyssa Moon. And this is a story of Delphine the mouse. And as a baby she's left at Cinderella's Castle. And there's a whole mouse community that lives there they've got their own places and their own princesses and their own royalty. But Delphine has no idea who she is she's adopted by one of the mice. And she grows up there and she's pretty happy but she wonders you know where she came from who her ancestors were who parents were. The only thing that she has is this silver huge silver needle and a piece of tapestry that she really doesn't understand the meaning of. And then but she grows up here in the stories of the threaded and the threaded were a group of mice who could make magical ball gowns that with butterflies that came to life and they were just the most spectacular creations ever. And she herself is a really great seamstress she's so gifted that the mouse princess asked her to make a gown for her for their ball, which is happening. Certainly at the same time as Cinderella's ball. So she makes this beautiful beautiful gown for her. And then she goes into the forbidden part of the palace and she sees the tapestries that tell the story of the threaded. And she sees needles that look just like the one she has and she wonders. Could she be one of the threaded could she have descended from them if so what what happened, because several years before the rats and the mice had used they used to be friends but then the rats turned on the mice. And there was a great battle, and it was really, really tragic for the mice. And so she finds out more about her, her background, but she realizes she can't do it alone and so one of the royal mice, his name is Alexander is very formal. He swears to protect her because he knows she's a princess. And so he accompanies her on her quest, and they kind of follow this trail of clues and everyone gets her closer to finding the answer. They follow the whole time by rats who are led by King Midnight who will do anything to destroy the mice. But they are helped by they meet this huge cat. And of course cats and mice, not a great combination, but this cat is very, very different his name is cornichon. And cornichon carries them on back and, and helps them when they're attacked and so on and so on and just, and then they reach this one place. And they think, Oh, this is going to be the answer. They know about the threaded, and I'm going to find out who I am because on the way. I discovered that the needle she has this magic. And she learns how to do different things with it like weaving things together. She can even cast. She can hold it up and bring down lightning even, but she she doesn't really know how to control it and she doesn't know the purpose of the needle. And so she thinks she's finally found it. And then the book ends. And hopefully there's going to be a sequel. And hopefully we'll find out the answers to who her family is, but we won't know until next year because that's when Delphine and the dark thread is scheduled to come out next March. So this was great fun for fans of Disney fans of Cinderella, who want to know more about the characters of the mice. There are several frightening situations, especially when they're attacked by the rats kind of, it's really scary, but all along she's very brave and courageous and she never gives up. So this is Delphine and the silver needle. Kind of reminds me of a tale of dust pearl in a way. Yes. Yeah, that's cute. It's like the mice stories. Yeah, very cool, very cool. And then my next one. This one is called cinders and sparrows by Steph, Steph, on step stephen Bachman. And this you can actually find on our children's fiction shelves. This book is about 12 year old Zeta Bridgeborn, who has spent most of her life as an orphan housemaid until she receives a letter from an animated scare curl, telling her that she is the rightful heir to a powerful family's ancient estate, the Blackbird castle and you can kind of see up there. Great cover. I know it's very pretty. So even though this castle has been rumored to have witches living there, which turns out to be true, we later find out. Zeta cannot wait to see the property, even though those rumors are true. But once she arrives, she is greeted by a mean and disapproving new guardian, of course, just like in the other. Her name is Mrs. Cantaker, Cantaker. And then she's also greeted by two young orphans who are the only staff that still take care of the castle. They, they then reveal that Zeta's only real family are the most powerful witches in the world. Unfortunately, they have been a spell or a curse has been cast upon them. It's a petrifying spell. They're frozen at the dinner table where they last gathered all together. It's pretty sad because you can actually see them frozen. Wow. No, like, it's literally frozen in time, their last emotions, you can see it on their faces. Obviously they, they're not like scared and really terrified. It's more like it actually shows what they were feeling at that moment. So, most of the staff members in the household ran away after the incident. They were scared of what evil creature could have done such a thing because those that can cast these awful spells are really dangerous creatures. One thing that you have to keep in mind is that in this world, which is are extremely important, because they are the ones who help give passage for lost souls. So you know when you die, some obviously go to their rightful place, their, their resting place. And, but there are some souls that wander in a way it's like a limbo or purgatory, and they're trying to, they're holding on to something because there's unfinished business, or they're, they can't let go. And, or something is missing, and they want to have peace, or they want closure. And now witches souls that have all this unfinished business and aren't at the final resting place. They eventually become dark and horrible creatures. So whatever is missing inside their soul, it actually manifests and create it kind of creates a more darker evil person or evil soul. Well, now that Zeta's family is frozen in time, lingering ghosts have been freely roaming about slowly turning into evil creatures. Zeta must learn what it takes to become as powerful as her family members, find a way to break the curse to unfreeze them, and solve the unanswered question about how she was separated from her family in the first place. She is an orphan, so they're wondering why, why now I don't understand. So, but this book, I didn't really finish it, but it was it was actually really good read, like so far. And it's kind of funny. The clockwork crow had a has a crow in that one obviously been some mechanical, but this one, she actually has a real crow, the real live bird, as kind of like her companion animal, kind of like a headwig to Harry Potter. Is it going to, is it part of a series do you think or do you think she's going to find out. I don't remember. I know this. I know one of them was going to be a series either this one or the other crow book. Mm hmm. I don't quite know, but I think it might be. Well, if it has an ending like Delphine. Oh, I know, I hope it doesn't. Yeah, or at least have some closure. Yeah. My last book is raw the mighty, the crocodile caper by a B Greenfield and illustrated by Sarah Horn. Excuse me, this is the story of Pharaoh son, daddy, who goes missing after he and his sister Kaya are sent to stay with the very, very unwelcoming satire who is one of Pharaoh's wives, but going with them to protect them. And so when, when daddy goes missing, they, it's their job to find him because they're supposed to be protecting him. And then his sister disappears also. So they're humans are missing, but also for whatever reason, maybe to impress Pharaoh satire has started creating a zoo. And in this zoo, she's put some crocodiles and she's put some other things. Animals are going missing from the zoo, including the prints of the crocodiles. So now you have a human prints and animal prints, who are both missing. And boy, are those crocodile parents angry. Everybody wants their kids back. And as they try to solve the mystery, the true brain is kept read the beetle, but who's going to listen to a beetle. And he comes up with all the answers and raw kind of says, Oh, yeah, Oh, I was just going to, I was just going to realize that. And raw is, yeah, he kind of has the gift of gap. So he's the one that can explain what's going on and, and the others will actually listen to him. And of course, you know, the, the missing crocodile and the missing children are found. And there are some scary situations because the crocodiles are, you know, they're ready to do whatever they need to to get their prince back. But what's funny through the whole story, are there are lots of little illustrations. And there's kind of a banter between all the animals, there's lions, there's a hippo and I was a hippo. And of course the crocodiles, the cats and Keppry to me that was the main attraction. This is part of a series. And it's the third one. And I really thought it was a lot of fun. And just, just the right amount of danger, and a great mystery and a little bit of insight into the life of the Egyptians. So raw the mighty, this one is the crocodile caper. Cool. The first one is called raw the mighty. Yeah. There's raw the mighty. And the, then there is a raw the mighty cat detective, and then raw the mighty, the great tomb robbery. And then this one. So these are like mysteries. Yes. Yes. That's cool. I like when they also talk about other cultures too. And my last book is kind of a sad one too. It's called many points of me by Caroline Gertler. And this one you can find in our children's fiction section. And this came out came to us in the month of March, just a few months ago. This book is about 12 year old Georgia Rosenblum. And she is trying to have a normal sixth grade life. But that can be hard when your father not only was the most important person in your life, but was also a famous artist. It's been two years since he passed and she's still in the morning. She's still grieving and very, very sad. When I read him art was a shared passion with her dad. And now she finds it hard to find the motivation to continue drawing for even for fun, or even as a career. It was always something that she enjoyed doing with her dad when she was alive so it kind of brings back that bad memories and stuff like that are good memories but makes her sad at the same time. Well, she finds this hard to get back into art, especially when she finds out that her neighbor and longtime friend Theo inspired her father's most of her father's famous paintings. An unfinished series of what he calls asterisms, unofficial constellations. It's kind of like those drawings or coloring books that you get, where you're connecting the dots. But it's like stars and like constellations but obviously they're unofficial because he created them. And he would draw a basically like a self portrait of himself or draw somebody else. And in the back, you would notice that there are points. And that's where you can see that that's how he created the drawing, I guess you could say. So it's like, so he made a series of drawings like that. And, and now Georgia's mother, who is getting ready to showcase all of his work for an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And who do you think is going to be included in this exhibit and getting a lot of attention. Of course it's her neighbor Theo. Georgia starts to feel less important as each day goes by and she starts to make big life changing decisions, such as pushing Theo away befriending the three most popular girls at the school, and also making the decision not to submit an application for a citywide art contest, a type of contest where if you submitted an application and a piece of art, which specifically had to be a self portrait. So you would win, I believe the, you would win I believe $1,000. And your artwork would be showcased in the Met. So, but things start to seem better when she discovers one of her dad's drawings of herself. When she was 10 years old. This was right before he passed. She found out that it was one of his constellation drawings that, and so when she turned it over she able. I'm sorry, there's sirens. So when she turned over the drawing she was able to see the constellation dots. I think she called them like pencil points or something like that. She realized like okay it's not just Theo that was inspiration for his artwork. It's also her as well. So she feels that you know this should be included in her mom's exhibit. It should be included with all the other drawings and paintings that her dad made. Why would she give it up. Why would she give it up for the one of the last drawings that her father ever created, and especially a drawing of her. So obviously she has a lot of emotional attachment to it. So, yes, even though Georgia started making these life changing decisions. She's going to face a lot of challenges by making these changes, these life changing decisions. She's going to face a lot of challenges and as she does, she's going to end up pushing her loved ones farther away. And then she's going to have to realize that those are the people that she's going to need most during this time. So, but you guys see, if everything works out in the end. Yeah, this is in. Yeah, this one was a pretty emotional, emotional roller coaster. I was rough. Yeah, sounds like, yeah. Yeah, that's a tough one. All right, well, those are our books for today. And we thank you for joining us. And if you want to read any of these books you can find them through our catalog by looking under the search term chapter chat 0721. And each of our chapter chats have the words chapter chat and then that month. So if you want to go back to previous months you would put 0605 and then the year that you're looking for, and each one will have about eight books for you to look at. We really hope that you read them and then maybe come back and visit us now that the libraries are open and tell us what you thought and tell us about books that you've read that we might want to read for chapter chat. So thanks, Janine. It was a great time again. Yeah. Oh, and also our summer reading program started as well. That is all virtual through Beanstack. You can access it through our website as well. So, read these books, you'll get badges you might enter to win gift cards. It's a lot of fun. Okay. All right. Well, it was great seeing you Pam. We'll see you next month. Bye.