Author: Stephanie

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

- Stephanie Leave a comment

teenage mutant ninja turtlesTeenage. Mutant. Ninja. Turtles. With the recent reboot of the movie, which came out in 2014 starring Megan Fox, and the fact that our summer reading program is superheroes, people of all ages seem to be asking for more information about these pizza-loving, crime-fighting superheroes. Seeing as I like the out-of-the-ordinary superheroes, I found myself looking more into TMNT and their many different reboots. One of the games I found was the 2013 release of Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for the Wii. (This game is also available on 3DS and Xbox 360.)

Now I must admit that I am a fan of the 1987-1996 run of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show, as I grew up watching them and the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers at my neighbor’s house, so my review may be a bit skewed. (Find Season One of TMNT here.)Nonetheless, I shall prevail. Graphics aside, which is where my major grumpiness resides with this game as they differ from the original, this game is still entertaining to play. Having seen episodes of the Nickelodeon show, I can say that the characters in this game move just like the characters in the show, flying through the air battling bad guys and chowing down on pizza to get their health back. Players are allowed to choose which of the four turtles they wish to play as with, of course, the option being that you can play with as many as four players. This game was clearly marketed and more or less made for younger children to play, but there are elements that will draw in older fans of the show as well.

The graphics are good, but not amazing, similar to the Nickelodeon show. There are fifteen different action-packed levels for players to maneuver through, as well as more than twelve different environments of play to muck through, be they subways, city streets, sewers, docks, and many more. Fans of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, both young and old, will enjoy playing this game as they battle to stop Shredder and the Kraang from unleashing a mutagen bomb that, if detonated, will turn the hapless residents of New York City into mindless mutants.

If you’re interested in being a green superhero for a little while, join Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo, as they battle to save New York. Booyakasha!

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

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mr penumbra's 24 hour bookstoreI’m a cover girl. No, not the makeup kind of CoverGirl, but the type of person who makes her personal book reading choices by whether or not the cover art is saying, “You muussttt reeeaddd meeee,” as I meander the stacks of the library or the book store. That eye-catching cover and blurb is what led me to Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. I was at a conference and saw a poster advertising an author panel that had Robin Sloan, the author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, and several other authors that I was vaguely aware of also as panelists. I just happened to be right down the hall, the blurb about their panel was interesting, and bonus: you could get a free book signed by the author if you came. So I went.

I’m glad I did. I picked up my signed copy of Sloan’s book after the panel ended and started reading. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is the story of the mixture of books and technology, the old and the new. The main character, Clay Jannon, was hit by the Great Recession and lost his job as a web-designer in San Francisco. Walking the streets one night, he stumbles upon Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and manages to land a job working the night shift. Quickly he learns that the patrons of Mr. Penumbra’s store are not like regular bookstore customers. They come and go at odd hours of the day and never buy anything. Instead they find and select somewhat odd and old volumes, books that Clay has been told not to read or touch, through an elaborate and long-standing arrangement with Mr. Penumbra. His curiosity piqued, Clay opens one of those forbidden books and finds them written in code. He decides to bring in some friends to help him solve the mystery of what these people are checking out, as well as the mystery of what exactly is happening in Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.

This book combines elements of mystery, adventure, fantasy, technology, and friendship to bring about a fascinating story of the conflict between the new and the old. Technology and print seem to battle it out within the pages of this book, as Clay soon realizes that Mr. Penumbra’s sudden disappearance from the bookstore has something to do with the mystery books in the store and the people who come to check them out. Add in a secret society called the Broken Spine, something called the Founder’s Puzzle, and Clay and his friends soon find themselves faced off in a race to solve the mystery before the Broken Spine has the chance. Sloan has woven together a story of global conspiracy that draws on the battle between old and new that will leave readers on the edge of their seats waiting to see who will triumph in the end.

This book is also available as a book on cd and as a playaway.

Donkey Kong Country Returns

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donkey kong country returnsFor those of us who grew up with older gaming systems (shout out to everyone who remembers having to blow on Nintendo cartridges to get them to work!), the introduction of games with characters that were originally released on those platforms are always met with big cheers and applause. One of my favorites to play with the neighbor boys when I was younger was Donkey Kong. As I was searching the shelves for a new game to try, I found Donkey Kong Country Returns seemingly waiting for me to check-out and get all nostalgic playing.

Let me tell you, this game did not let me down. Donkey Kong Country Returns plays with just as much difficulty as the original Donkey Kong games, even complete with the side-scrolling features that are unmistakably Kong with the introduction of 3D movements and sequences to appeal to newer players. Familiar characters throughout the Donkey Kong franchise are present within this game with one neat introduction: two player cooperative play! Players can play two at a time: one as Donkey Kong and another as Diddy Kong. Brilliant! Hidden items, puzzle pieces, and other bonus surprises can be found throughout the levels with the option for you to eventually spell out K-O-N-G and win an awesome bonus! There are also additional levels that allow players the opportunity to slow down and strategize as they are greeted with new challenges, movements, and attacks.

Here’s a brief game overview: The animals of Donkey Kong Island have raided Donkey Kong’s hoard of bananas and STOLEN them. Don’t worry. It’s not entirely their fault. They’ve been taken under the influence of several evil Tikis. As a result, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong have to team up to find where the animals have hidden the bananas! (And try to stay out of danger, of course.)

(Sidenote: When researching for this blog post, I found an article written by NPR about Shigeru Miyamoto, the inventor of Mario and Donkey Kong. Check it out! It’s full of some interesting information about the two that I never know. The article is called The Legendary Mr. Miyamoto, Father of Mario and Donkey Kong.)

The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion & The Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming

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the family romanovThis book, The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion & the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming, satisfied my younger self’s curiosity about what happened to Anastasia after the movie ended. I wore out my VHS copy of Anastasia, the movie put out by Twentieth Century Fox, and even convinced my parents to buy me the giant movie poster that I proudly kept on my walls until I moved away to college. Even though the movie is loosely based on the facts of Russia’s last royal family, the Romanovs, I was hooked and subsequently devoured anything and everything that was published about them.

The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion & the Fall of Imperial Russia hit my radar when it was announced as a YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction finalist and a Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Blue Ribbon award winner in 2014. (Check out Candace Fleming’s website for a list of awards and honors that The Family Romanov won.) Instead of making their lives seem more glamorous and perfect, which the mainstream movie and some dramatizations of the royal families’ lives seem to do, Fleming instead chooses to highlight their real lives and not the fantastical.

When Nicholas II, Russia’s last tsar, inherited the throne in 1894, he was completely and totally unprepared to rule. As a result, his wife, Alexandra, a reclusive woman, began steering her husband toward what she believed to be the right way to rule. Fleming narrates the lives of Nicholas II, Alexandra, their four daughters, and their hemophilic son against the background of World War I and the beginning of political unrest that was brewing in Revolutionist Russia. Instead of paying attention and working with the peasants, Alexandra, Nicholas II, and their family decided to seemingly turn a blind eye to the problems of their nation and rest in their richly opulent castle away from the unrest. The children were raised secluded from others and lived a cavalier and sheltered existence that Fleming notes throughout her work. Fleming brings in period photographs and primary research to enhance the entanglements of royal life and the peasants and working class’ lives of squalor.

Read along as Fleming guides you through the lives of Russia’s last royal family, highlighting the key moments that led to the ultimate rebellion of the people, the murder of the family, and the disastrous fall of Imperial Russia.

The Maze Runner

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I have a love/hate relationship with movies that are based on books. Sometimes the movies are well put together and follow the plot lines and character development of the book almost perfectly. Other times, I can tell just by the preview that the movie has completely gone off the rails and does not follow the book. Depending on how attached I am to the book, I might be able to let go of the differences in the movie, but if I feel any deep connections to the book, I pity the people next to me in the theater because I will point out how the two differ. Thankfully, I have found a few book-based movies that have changes that enhance the book or even make more logical sense than the world created in the book.

With the recent upswing in popularity of post-apocalyptic dystopian literature, especially those marketed towards young adults, movie producers have seemingly been turning to these novels as fool-proof ways to draw people into the theaters. (Case in point: The Hunger Games movies based on books by Suzanne Collins, as well as the Divergent movies based on books by Veronica Roth.) A similar post-apocalyptic dystopian book/movie pair just made it to the top of my to-be-read/to-be-watched list and I must say that I actually enjoyed the two.

the maze runnerThis pairing is the book, The Maze Runner written by James Dashner published in 2009, as compared to the movie The Maze Runner released in 2014 by Twentieth Century Fox.

In the book, Dashner begins the story of the Maze by introducing Thomas, the newest Greenie who wakes up in the bottom of the Box not knowing anything about himself, not even his name. He is greeted by the other boys, the Gladers, and shown around his new home, the Glade, a large expanse of land surrounded and enclosed in huge stone walls. Each boy has to pull his own weight in order for them all to survive, leaving them all with jobs to make their enclosed community run smoothly.

As Thomas soon learns, the Gladers are sure of only a few things: every morning the stone doors open, every night the doors close, and you do not want to be stuck in the maze at night because that is when the Grievers, a weird mechanical, bulbous type of monster that, if they corner you, can sting you and make you go through the Changing, come out. Every night after the doors close, the maze changes, making it even harder for the boys as solving the maze is the only way they can escape. Every thirty days a new Greenie is delivered in the Box. These things have been consistent since the first group of boys woke up in the maze over two years ago. Until Thomas shows up… Then everything changes.

the maze runner dvdThe movie version deviates from the plot of the book, but in a good way, in a necessary cinematic way. Some of the plot points Dashner makes in the book would have been difficult and a little far-fetched to allow for on-screen time, but at the same time, the exclusion of those significant details changed the plot from what Dashner wrote in the book. (For example, the exclusion of the Cliff, the abyss that is mentioned throughout the book, allowed the movie producers to instead dive more into the mechanics of the Grievers and the interlocking technology aspects that WCKD, also known as the Creators, used to control the boys.) Many other changes were done to enhance the book, but the overall themes of the book are still present within the movie.

All in all, the movie allows viewers who have read the book a better understanding of the workings of the boys’ minds, to see in better detail the immensity and confusion of the maze, and the destruction that the Grievers, and therefore the Creators, run the boys through on a day-to-day basis.

In my opinion, the movie version did not detract from the book, but instead adds a necessary level of cinematic pop to keep viewers engaged in the Gladers’ lives and their struggle to get free.

The Maze Runner is also available as an e-book, an e-audiobook, a playaway audiobook, and a cd audiobook.

 

 

Something for the Pain: Compassion and Burn-out in the ER by Paul Austin

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something for the painOn a day-to-day basis, emergency room doctors see a staggering amount of patients. This can become daunting especially when you work the night shift and have a growing family that relies on you during the day. The training and schooling involved in order to become a doctor is somewhat designed to introduce interested candidates to the stressors and rigor of being a doctor, but even armed with that knowledge and experience, the first few shifts and even months until you fall into the swing of things can seem daunting.

Paul Austin, a former firefighter with more than twenty years of experience working in emergencies, has crafted together Something for the Pain: Compassion and Burn-out in the ER. This book, Austin’s memoir, provides an account of what it is really like to struggle through years of medical school, decide your specialty, and then commit to that area. Austin details for readers some of the challenges that emergency room doctors go through on a day-to-day basis. No matter how difficult his day is, he acknowledges that working in a busy emergency room has allowed him to grow and become a better doctor and person.

The endless line of patients and the daily labors of working in an emergency room threatened to tear him apart and destroy his family, but Austin worked hard to find himself again through therapy and looking for moments of clarity, sanity, and compassion throughout the hospital corridors.

Other People’s Rejection Letters Edited by Bill Shapiro

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other people's rejection lettersIt is easy sometimes to focus on the things that are happening just to us. With the growing prevalence of different forms of social media, people begin to present only the good things that happen in their lives while sweeping the bad out of the way. This results in the feeling that bad things only ever happen to us and everyone else is living a golden life. Sometimes we just need a reminder that we are not alone in experiencing rejection and for me, Other People’s Rejection Letters edited by Bill Shapiro, helped me remember that bad things also happen to other people.

In this book, Shapiro looked for rejection letters from family, friends, and even sent a request out to reporters to help him dig up some letters from across the country. Identifying information in some of the letters have been changed to protect the person they are about, but the essence of the letters still remains. Shapiro has chosen to present these letters in their original formats, as emails, handwritten words, text messages, and others. The subject matter careens around from break-up messages, book rejection letters, hurt letters to or from parents, job rejection notices, and even art gallery rejections. Shapiro includes rejection letters from everyone ranging from the famous to the not-so-famous. If a certain letter catches your eye, check out the Postscript section at the end of the book where Shapiro delves into the story behind some of the letters and what has happened to the recipients and senders since.

While a collection of rejection letters might seem depressing, this book serves as a reminder that we truly cannot succeed unless we push ourselves out into the world with the knowledge that we must get rejected in order to find our place. After all, it’s just like Marilyn Monroe said, “Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

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everything i never told youI love book lists. Give me a list of award books or a list of books you absolutely adored, and I will slowly make my way through the list until I have read them all. Today’s book is one I discovered on an award list. The title is Everything I Never Told You and is Celeste Ng’s debut novel. I first heard of Everything I Never Told You when I was tuned in to watch the Alex Awards online. The Alex Awards are an award given out by the American Library Association (ALA) to the 10 best adult books that have special appeal to teens. (This book has also been on numerous other lists and won another award. Check out Celeste Ng’s website for more information.)

Everything I Never Told You begins, “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet. 1977, May 3, six thirty in the morning, no one knows anything but this innocuous fact: Lydia is late for breakfast.” After those simple, yet devastating, few sentences, Ng weaves together the story of a Chinese-American family growing up in 1970s Ohio. Each family member is outlined: the professor father James, stay-at-home mother Marilyn, older brother Nathan who is desperate to leave home, younger sister Hannah who seems to blend into the background, and the middle golden-child Lydia whose mother and father have placed all of their hopes on her shoulders, as well as several other members of the community. When Lydia’s body is found in the lake right down the street from their house, the entire family falls apart.

This book delves into the complex nature of the Lees: family, history, home, and the struggles we all make on a daily basis to understand each other and to find ourselves.

 

no one else can have youIf that description caught your interest, check out No One Else Can Have You by Kathleen Hale. This book deals with similar concepts of love, loss, and the tragic and upheaving nature of death. This book takes place in the small town of Friendship, Wisconsin, where residents have been shocked by the discovery of high school student Ruth Fried’s body in a cornfield. Her best friend, 16-year-old Kippy Bushamn, finds herself trying to solve her best friend’s murder. Ruth’s mother has given Ruth’s diary to Kippy with the express instruction to redact the sexy parts. Kippy sets out to find out who murdered her best friend and discovers that in her small Midwestern town, everyone seems to have secrets.

This quirky murder mystery will have you following Kippy around as she emulates her idol, Diane Sawyer, to figure out who her best friend really was and what really happened when she died.

Falling Skies

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I’m a sucker for television shows that cross genres and formats. One of my most recent finds was the television show, Falling Skies, which also has a videogame and a graphic novel out at this time.

falling skies tvThe library currently has multiple seasons of Falling Skies available for check-out. If you have never heard of this show, Falling Skies is a science fiction, post-apocalyptic drama that runs on TNT with its final season premiering on June 28th at 9pm. Falling Skies takes place after an alien attack has happened on planet Earth, forcing citizens to gather together and attempt to fight back. Boston professor of history, Tom Mason, played by Noah Wyle, is struggling to deal with the fact that his wife has died and his son has been captured by the aliens. Groups of people are being held captive, the number of dead is rising, and in order to rescue the captives, militia groups are forming to protect the survivors. What seems like a straight and easy plan becomes increasingly complicated as the survivors realize that the aliens are more intelligent and crafty than they initially believed. Mason and his group must band together and come up with new ideas to outsmart the aliens.

 

falling skies gn

If the television show interests you, check out Paul Tobin’s graphic novel Falling Skies with artwork by Juan Ferreyra. Tobin’s graphic novel serves as a prequel to the television show. Here, you follow the life of Professor Tom Mason and his three sons who are forced to come to terms with the fact that Mason’s wife has died. Mason believes that in order to survive, they must all hide, which ultimately backfires when one of his sons is captured by the aliens. The artwork in this novel draws from the likeness of the television characters with viewers of the show easily able to recognize their favorite characters. Tobin draws a tale for readers about the months after the alien attack and Mason’s decision to join a militia group to rescue his son. Fans of the television show will not be disappointed in the graphic novel.

falling skies gameThe final part of Falling Skies’ transition across genres in the videogame available on PlayStation 3 called Falling Skies: The Game. This game expands upon the tactical warfare element of the television show and by extension, Tom Mason’s vast knowledge of historical warfare and battle strategy. In the videogame, players have the option to customize and maneuver their squad in order to outsmart the enemy. In addition to the over 90 tactical warfare missions, players are also given the option to undertake an infinite number of side quests. This turn-based style of gameplay allows you to complete missions and finish objectives as you command a squad made up of anywhere from 1-6 units.

Check out any of the Falling Skies materials available at the library and let us know if there are other materials for which you are looking!

Carnival Games

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carnival gaemsSummer is my favorite time of year. School is out, the weather is getting warmer, summer reading programs begin, and the best part of summer starts: carnival time! Fairs, carnivals, and rodeos are my favorite way to spend a hot summer night with friends. Confession: I am not very good at carnival games. My hand-eye coordination is, to put it politely, lacking. This does not lessen my desire to play and actually makes me strive to become better every year. My newest way to practice, besides going to the arcade or setting up a mini-carnival with the kids in my neighborhood, is to play Carnival Games, a videogame available at the Davenport Public Library for the Wii.

You may be wondering how playing a videogame actually prepares you to play real carnival games. The use of the Wii remote, instead of a regular game controller, allows players to practice the motion as they are throwing the sledgehammer to test their strength, as they are throwing the ball in Skee Ball, or even as they are trying to dunk someone at the dunk tank. One major bonus to this game is that it allows up to four players to play at a time, which makes each carnival game more of a competition, just like a real carnival! Carnival Games offers over 25 different games of chance and skill that can be found at carnivals across the nation. In addition to allowing players to customize and accessorize their own character, this game revels in the carnival spirit: with bright lights, patterns, and people of all kinds milling around the game.

Check out this game today and play games like Balloon Darts, Ring Toss, Hole in One, Shooting Gallery, Meter-O-Love, and many more. And if you’re lucky, you will beat the rest of the people you are playing against and win one of the over 250 virtual prizes available.