Tag Archives: Seymour Branch

On the shelf: ‘Rescue My Child’ by Neil C. Livingstone

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By Megan Andres, Grand Rapids Public Library, Seymour Branch

 

When Betty Mahmoody’s story first came to light, the United States was confronted with a problem of epic proportions: international parental abduction. Countless parents around the county were finally heard. Author Livingstone wrote Rescue My Child to help inform an entire generation of the cruelty these parents face every day.

 

Livingston focused on Corporate Training Unlimited (CTU), an organization composed of ex-Delta Force commandos, who would intervene in international cases. This book tells of four such cases. The stories detail the rescues of five children and one mother from various countries and situations. Laurie Swint Ghidaoui and her daughter Leila were rescued from Tunisia. Lauren Mahone was recovered in Jordan. Brittney Chowdhury was located in Bangladesh while Jeremy Hefner and his sister Amy were rescued in Ecuador.

 

Rescue My Child endeavored to alert the world about international parental abduction at a time when such a crime was hardly imaginable. CTU risked much to be able to help these families: prison, injury and even death. Had these men and women been discovered while on foreign soil and in possession of a child of a citizen, the United States could not have helped them. It is a reminder that some children do come home and also a reminder that some are still missing.

On the shelf: ‘Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony’ by Eoin Colfer

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By Megan Andres, Grand Rapids Public Library, Seymour Branch

 

Artemis Fowl has done many things in his short life. He has mastered criminal enterprise. He has taken on Russian mobsters to save his father’s life. He has even saved the entire faerie world from a master criminal pixie. What a teenager! In this adventure, Artemis has met his match in a girl named Minerva, who kidnaps a demon, one of ten families of faerie, from an opera house in Italy.

 

Author Eoin Colfer is a former educator who had amazing success with the first Artemis Fowl novel and has continued to toss the boy genius into exciting adventures. Colfer’s stories have been compared with C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia as well as J.K. Rowlings’ Harry Potter series. Children around the world love the way Artemis uses technology, education and logic to expose the faerie world, endanger it, and then ultimately save it.

 

Artemis has always been a lonely, unique boy. Minerva is his ultimate competitor.
The Artemis Fowl series contain enough world travel, fantasy and mystery to intrigue any child. Who knows, it may even give the grandchildren some ideas! Start with the original Artemis Fowl and end the series with The Lost Colony. Your grandchildren will love them!

On the shelf: ‘Dead Wrong’ by Mariah Stewart

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By Megan Andres, Grand Rapids Public Library, Seymour Branch

 

In February, 2004, three criminals sit together at a courthouse. They decide to play an innocent game: name three people you would kill if you knew you couldn’t be caught. Then the twist: they exchange lists.

 

Mariah Stewart’s Dead Wrong is the beginning of a four-book series which tells the tale of this horrid game and the lives threatened by it. In this first book, Mara Douglas is a Child Advocate for the Lyndon courthouse. She stands for those who have no voice: the abused, the neglected, and the lost. One of her cases has earned her a place in the game. The prize: her death.

 

When someone begins killing women in Lyndon, the police and the FBI get involved. What truly haunts them is that all the women so far have one similarity: their name is M. Douglas. Mara finds herself saddled with a former FBI agent as a bodyguard because her own sister, another FBI agent, fears something bigger.

 

As events unfold and two more die, Mara makes the connection. Once upon a time Mara advocated in court on behalf of the Giordino children. She helped their mother Diana take them away from their father Vincent. Vincent didn’t like that idea and decided that if he couldn’t have them no one would. In jail for murdering his family, Vinnie also happens to have played that game in the courthouse. And the man who took his list is after Mara.

 

Dead Wrong is full of twists and turns. It is both romance and thriller, genres that Mariah Stewart blends convincingly. But what may be the Dead Wrong’s best promise is that there are still two more lists out there with two more killers waiting.

On the shelf: ‘Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell’ by Susanna Clarke

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By Amy Cochran, GRPL, Seymour Branch

 

Every time I read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark, I find myself completely immersed once more. Despite numerous efforts, I have yet to find another novel that so perfectly mixes the elements I especially love in a story: Jane Austen-style English manners, British history and subtle fantasy. 

 

In early nineteenth century England during Napoleon’s heyday as a major threat, two magicians work to bring magic back to the world. Quiet, mousy Mr. Norrell and his increasingly successful and confident apprentice, Jonathan Strange find themselves beset both by their own competitive natures and long-forgotten powers that have taken an interest in the mortal world once more. 

 

Clark took took ten years to research and write this huge, complex story, and the effort shows in every intricately laid-out detail. She has painstakingly created a Britain where magic has been intertwined in politics and life for centuries, and gives plenty of fascinating hints to the hidden world that lies behind our own.

 

There is a sly and witty sense of humor in descriptions of situations and characters, and extensive footnotes fill in what we need to know about this slightly different, magical Britain. I happen to love footnotes, especially fictionalized ones, plus I find it difficult to resist any book that makes me feel as if I’m in an ancient, snowy wood where anything could happen.