Youth materials for summer enjoyment

The Summer Reading Program is in full swing here at Peter White Public Library. We have met many enthusiastic readers this summer and are excited to share book recommendations. With two weeks left before Summer Reading wraps up, the new section in Youth Services offers some hot new reads, music, and audiobooks for the beach, your final summer vacations or just lazing around at home. Grab Goo on My Shoe by Here Comes Trouble or Saddle Up by the Okee Dokee Brothers to enjoy some music on your next road trip, along with these books, audiobook and cd.

Just in time for the 2016 Summer Games in Rio, Brazil, Nadia: The Girl Who Just Couldn’t Sit Still by Karlin Gray, is the autobigroaphy of Nadia Comaneci of Romania.  Comaneci is the youngest Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics. She was 14 years old when she earned 7 perfect tens in competition, winning  three gold, one silver and one bronze medal at the Montreal Summer Games in 1976. In this joyful telling of her childhood, early competition and the Olympic games, Gray storytelling entertains readers with this intriguing story. Illustrator Christine Davenier captures the motion of Nadia’s flips, twists and routines. This story is great for aspiring gymnasts and readers with little knowledge of the sport.

Lovers of Percy Jackson and the Heroes of Olympus will love the first in Riordan’s newest “Trials of Apollo” series The Hidden Oracle. PWPL owns both the book and audiobook. Zeus has thrown his son Apollo out of Olympus. He awakens in New York City as a 16 year old boy named Lester Papadopoulus. He hopes that the demi-gods at camp half-blood will give him shelter from monsters and foes who seek to destroy him in his mortal state. A pint-sized, twelve- year-old street urchin claims his service and the pair work together to get Apollo reinstated at Olympus, help solve why the Oracle of Delphi has gone silent and find answers to the strange disappearances of demi-gods from the camp. Riordan introduces readers to some new Roman villains, promising a nail-biting series that will thoroughly satisfy his audience.

Spokane-Coeur d'Alene writer, Sherman Alexie Jr. returns to his roots in his first picture book Thunderboy Jr. Alexie was named after his father, Sherman Joseph Alexie, like his character, Thunder Boy Smith. And Thunder Boy does not like it. Or his nickname: Little Thunder. He hates his name. He loves his Dad but wants to be himself. Caldecott Honor Illustrator Yuyi Morales uses bright, bold colors that show Thunder Boy’s desire to be an original, something reader’s young and old alike can appreciate.

Twelve year old Dasha is navigating tweendom in A Year Without Mom an autobiography by Dasha Tolstikova., Dasha’s mother leaves Moscow, Russia for America to pursue a Masters in advertising. While she’s gone Dasha lives with her grandparents, goes to school and paints for fun. The smattering of color in the black and white graphic novel, highlights the embarrassing, exhilarating and confusing moments that happen to Tolstikova. The author briefly touches on the attempted Coup D’état in Moscow in 1991, as well as a first love and her mother’s return to take her back to America. With an interesting glimpse at the life of a Russian girl in the 1990’s, this book can be read through in one sitting.

Ada’s Violin by Susan Hood is a story of pure magic. When there weren’t enough instruments for children of a garbage dump neighborhood Cateura, Paraguay to play, a carpenter used recycled materials to make cellos, flutes, guitars and violins. Young Ada Rios chose to play a violin made of an old paint can, an aluminum baking tray, a fork, and pieces of wooden crates. Over time Ada and her peers learned how to play their recycled instruments, turning into The Recycled Orchestra. The band inspired the trash pickers, then their city, other audiences in Paraguay, then the world. Orchestra Director Favio Chavez said, “Buried in the trash was music.” Beautiful. This book will inspire audiences to appreciate and play music.

If you are looking for new music, Grammy Award Winners Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer have a great new cd called Dancin’ in the Kitchen: Songs for All Families. From Cajun to Polka, Irish and Bluegrass, this cd will keep your toes tapping song after song. “Howdy Little Newlycome” is great for the new baby in your life and “Happy Adoption Day” is a great celebration song for new family members too!

--Jeni Kilpela, Youth Services