Empress Orchid
by Anchee Min

At one time in China, a woman’s value was judged by her marriage and children. For Imperial wives and concubines, this could mean life or a secret death. Author Anchee Min introduces Tzu His who became China’s last empress. Orchid, as she was known in the Forbidden City, began life as an innocent country girl who became the Emperor’s fourth wife.

While others have told Empress Orchid’s story, author Min uses her own childhood in China to tell this story of a girl turned goddess. Orchid rises above all other women in the Forbidden City to become her Emperor’s favorite wife. She gives him an heir and, when enemies threaten China, leads her people as regent for 46 years.

Min’s native tongue helps give the story its scope. Her descriptions tell a tale of a time when the Boxers were gaining power and the Imperials were losing it. It was a time when the wives and concubines of an emperor fought for the chance to have an heir and the power and security that a son could bring. Orchid is the Cinderella of 19th century China: a woman who had to become more than a simple country girl to rule her people in peace and justice.

By Megan Andres, Grand Rapids Public Library, Seymour Branch

The Commissario Guido Brunetti Series
by Donna Leon

Your plans for a trip to Italy fell apart? Until you can visit Rome or glide through Venice’s canals, do this: Take up with a policeman.

Donna Leon, an American living in Italy, has just brought out the 15th book, Through a Glass Darkly, in her mystery series set in Venice. Commissario Guido Brunetti is patient, principled and long suffering in the pursuit of justice in a bureaucracy that is often corrupt. He is married to Paola, who cooks wonderful meals and provides shrewd commentary. You finish a book feeling you’ve had a privileged homestay and seen sites far from the tourist track.

It’s best to begin the series with the first book, Death at La Fenice, since the author often refers to earlier incidents. Here, in the celebrated opera house, the world-famous conductor Maestro Helmut Wellauer, is poisoned during a performance of La Traviata. Brunetti, accustomed to the mazey corruptions of Venice, is surprised at the number of enemies Wellauer has made on his way to the top. That title is followed by Death in a Strange Country, in which the body of an American soldier is found in a canal. Next in the series is Uniform Justice, in which a cadet from Venice’s elite military academy is found hanged. The investigation leads to a wall of silence and hostility.

The series is very popular throughout Europe, and is gathering lots of fans in the U.S., many of whom also couldn’t vacation in Venice this year.

By Bill Hill, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

March of the Penguins
by Luc Jacquet and Jerome Maison

It is a strange life.

The Emperor penguins are born into darkness at the coldest end of the earth. To get to their mating territory 70 miles inland, they must waddle in short steps for a week through a hazard of up thrust ice scored by crevasses. As deep winter comes on, the females hatch one egg each, pass it to their partner and make the long march to the shore to feed and recover. The male Emperors stay behind cradling their precious eggs on the tops of their feet. They will huddle together through the long Antarctic winter going without food for as much as four months.

The darkness and terrible cold ease as the sun climbs higher. Shortly after the eggs hatch the females return, ready to spell the exhausted males who now must totter to the sea. The parents take turns shuttling to the sea for food till their chicks are old enough to make the journey themselves, and the cycle begins again.

Despite its billing as the “Official companion to the major motion picture,” this book is a distillation of the movie in 160 pages of photos with the movie’s narration for text. There is a short end chapter on the making the film. The publisher, National Geographic, has produced a handsome and fascinating book, one that could be shared with the rising generation.

By Bill Hill, Grand Rapids Public Library, Main Branch

Dakotah Treasures Series (Ruby; Pearl; Opal; Amethyst)
by Lauraine Snelling

Hearing that her father is dying, Ruby Torvald takes her little sister Opal and leaves New York City for the wilds of Little Missouri in Dakota Territory. When they arrive in this pioneer town, they are shocked to discover their father is very near death and owns Dove House — a sordid bar, complete with barmaids. Before he dies, Per Torvald makes Ruby swear she will “take care of the girls” — the soiled doves in residence. Ruby finds herself suddenly faced with life on the frontier in a barely-there town.

Over the course of four books, Snelling tells the story of Ruby Torvald and Little Missouri. The author focuses on each of four women: Ruby Torvald, Pearl Hossfuss, Opal Torvald, and Amethyst O’Shaunasy. These women find themselves in circumstances often beyond their control in a time when women were not considered strong in body or emotion.
Ruby finds herself taking on the reform of Dove House while her younger sister Opal confronts societal views of women in the West. Pearl goes from riches in Chicago to a one-room schoolhouse in Little Missouri, and Amethyst comes to find her lost nephew Joel in Medora. The four women learn something about themselves and about God in this Inspirational Fiction series.

By Megan Andres, Grand Rapids Public Library, Seymour Branch