Jeff Rivera Reluctant Readers

Librarian & Bookseller Reluctant Readers Series

I have recently begun to interview many of the industry professionals about ways that they are using their positions as librarians and booksellers to encourage young adults and children to read.  I am learning a lot and will be updating everyone as soon as I can.  I am very excited about this series, as it will highlight the efforts that are successful in encouraging young readers to continue along the path of lifelong reading!  If you are a professional and would like to be interviewed for this series, please contact Gina Rizzo, or comment on the site, and we will be sure to get back to you as soon as possible!  Happy reading, everyone!

The Real Benedict Arnold

Title: The Real Benedict Arnold Written by: Jim Murphy Publisher: Clarion Books

 

Summary: Every account of the American Revolution mentions Benedict Arnold and brands him-correctly-as a traitor. There's no question that Arnold, an American army officer, switched his loyalty to the British side. Over the years, however, historians, partisans, and gossips have added to Arnold's unsavory reputation by distorting, embroidering, or simply ignoring factual details. In this informed and thoughtful account, Jim Murphy goes in search of the real man behind the "traitor" label, rumors, and folktales that became part of the Benedict Arnold legend. Drawing on Arnold's few surviving writings and on the letters, memoirs, and political documents of his contemporaries, Murphy builds a fascinating portrait of a brilliant man, consistently undervalued by his peers, who made a choice that continues to reverberate through American history. Dramatic accounts of crucial battles and political maneuvers round out this lively biography of a patriot who could have been a hero.

Punk Rock Etiquette: The Ultimate How-to Guide for DIY, Punk, Indie, and Underground Bands

Title: Punk Rock Etiquette: The Ultimate How-to Guide for DIY, Punk, Indie, and Underground Bands Written by: Travis Nichols Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

 

Summary: Looking to start an underground band? Don't make a move until you've read this book!So you KNOW you are destined to rock... well you're in luck -- all you need is this book! (Please note musical talent, bandmates, a car for touring, and an uncle who owns a record label might also help.) An original blend of nonfiction how-to's about all things DIY rock created by an indie-circuit veteran with a knack for hysterical snark, PUNK ROCK ETIQUETTE teaches you everything from how to pick your bandmates and choose a name (Never deliberately misspell your band's name. C how lame it lookz?), to detailed guides on screenprinting your own merch, and interviews and advice from studio owners about the do's and don'ts of recording. PUNK ROCK ETIQUETTE is an unfiltered peek backstage that will appeal to aspiring musicians and anyone who's curious about what goes on in the hours between the last chord and the next big show.

Students on Strike: Jim Crow, Civil Rights, Brown , and Me

Title: Students on Strike: Jim Crow, Civil Rights, Brown , and Me Written by: John Stokes Publisher: National Geographic Children's Books

 

Summary: John Stokes has waited more than 50 years to give his eyewitness account of "The Manhattan Project." This was the name he and a group of fellow students gave their strike at R.R. Moton High School that helped to end separate schooling for blacks and whites, not only in his home state of Virginia, but throughout America. Told in Stokes' own words, the story vividly conveys how his passion for learning helped set in motion one of the most powerful movements in American history, resulting in the desegregation of schools-and life-in the United States.As a child tending crops on the family farm, John Stokes never dreamed that one day he would be at the center of the Civil Rights Movement. Yet, on April 23, 1951, he and his fellow students walked out of the school and into the history books. Their school was built to accommodate 180 students, yet over 400 black students attended classes in leaky buildings with tar paper walls. A potbelly stove served as the only source of heat, and the school lacked running water, indoor plumbing, and a cafeteria. Yet to Stokes and his fellow students, it was their path to a better life.Students on Strike is an evocative first-person narrative from a period of radical change in American history. Stokes recounts the planning of the student walkout, the secret meetings, the plot to send the principal on a wild goose chase after "truant" students, and the strategy to boycott classes until conditions improved. The author recalls the challenges in persuading teachers and parents to support the strike, and the intimidation that came in the form of threats and a cross-burning on school grounds. Archival illustrations from Stokes' scrapbook add to the emotional impact of his story. The narrative follows the course of the lawsuits filed by the NAACP, which would became part of the historic Brown v Board of Education ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court and the subsequent end to segregation in America.Young readers will relish this inspirational account of the heroic struggles of John Stokes and his fellow students; they will also learn a timeless lesson that people with little influence-but with great determination-can make a difference.

Generation Green: The Ultimate Teen Guide To Living an Eco-Friendly Life

Title: Generation Green: The Ultimate Teen Guide To Living an Eco-Friendly Life Written by: Linda Sivertsen Publisher: Simon Pulse

 

Summary: We all know about the Earth's environmental crisis, but there is someone who can truly make a difference: you. If you text your friends or chat with them online, download music to your iPod, or toss bottles and papers into recycling bins, you're already more eco-savvy than you think. It's just as easy to do even more to help save the earth, and Generation Green shows you how. This book: * Lays out the inside scoop on the biggest issues affecting our planet, such as global warming and overflowing landfills * Offers dozens of tips on how to shop, dress, eat, and travel the green way * Includes interviews with teens like you who are involved with fun, innovative green causes * Shows that being environmentally conscious can be a natural part of your life -- and your generation's contribution to turning things around.It doesn't matter if you can't vote or drive. Your efforts -- big or small -- will contribute to saving the planet. It's time for all of us to take action. It's time to go green!

Ain't Nothing But a Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry

Title: Ain't Nothing But a Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry Written by: Scott Nelson Publisher: National Geographic Children's Books

 

Summary: Who was the real John Henry? The story of this legendary African-American figure has come down to us in so many songs, stories, and plays, that the facts are often lost. Historian Scott Nelson brings John Henry alive for young readers in his personal quest for the true story of the man behind the myth. Nelson presents the famous folk song as a mystery to be unraveled, identifying the embedded clues within the lyrics, which he examines to uncover many surprising truths. He investigates the legend and reveals the real John Henry in this beautifully illustrated book.Nelson's narrative is multilayered, interweaving the story of the building of the railroads, the period of Reconstruction, folk tales, American mythology, and an exploration of the tradition of work songs and their evolution into blues and rock and roll. This is also the story of the author's search for the flesh-and-blood man who became an American folk hero; Nelson gives a first-person account of how the historian works, showing history as a process of discovery. Readers rediscover an African-American folk hero. We meet John Henry, the man who worked for the railroad, driving steel spikes. When the railroad threatens to replace workers with a steam-powered hammer, John Henry bets that he can drive the beams into the ground faster than the machine. He wins the contest, but dies in the effort.Nelson's vibrant text, combined with archival images, brings a new perspective and focus to the life and times of this American legend.

No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row

Title: No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row Written by: Susan Kuklin Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

 

Summary: No Choirboy takes readers inside America's prisons, and allows inmates sentenced to death as teenagers to speak for themselves. In their own voices-raw and uncensored-they talk about their lives in prison, and share their thoughts and feelings about how they ended up there. Susan Kuklin also gets inside the system, exploring capital punishment itself and the intricacies and inequities of criminal justice in the United States.This is a searing, unforgettable read, and one that could change the way we think about crime and punishment.

The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West

Title: The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West Written by: Sid Fleischman Publisher: Collins

 

Summary: "Mark Twain was born fully grown, with a cheap cigar clamped between his teeth." So begins Sid Fleischman's ramble-scramble biography of the great American author and wit, who started life in a Missouri village as a barefoot boy named Samuel Clemens.Abandoning a career as a young steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River, Sam took a bumpy stagecoach to the Far West. In the gold and silver fields, he expected to get rich quick. Instead, he got poor fast, digging in the wrong places. His stint as a sagebrush newspaperman led to a duel with pistols. Had he not survived, the world would never have heard of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn-or red-headed Mark Twain.Samuel Clemens adopted his pen name in a hotel room in San Francisco and promptly made a jumping frog (and himself) famous. His celebrated novels followed at a leisurely pace; his quips at jet speed. "Don't let schooling interfere with your education," he wrote.Here, in high style, is the story of a wisecracking adventurer who came of age in the untamed West; an ink-stained rebel who surprised himself by becoming the most famous American of his time. Bountifully illustrated.

What It Is

Title: What It Is Written by: Lynda Barry Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly

 

Summary: How do objects summon memories? What do real images feel like? For decades, these types of questions have permeated the pages of Lynda Barry's compositions, with words attracting pictures and conjuring places through a pen that first and foremost keeps on moving. What It Is demonstrates a tried-and-true creative method that is playful, powerful, and accessible to anyone with an inquisitive wish to write or to remember. Composed of completely new material, each page of Barry's first Drawn & Quarterly book is a full-color collage that is not only a gentle guide to this process but an invigorating example of exactly what it is: "The ordinary is extraordinary."

It's Complicated: The American Teenager

Title: It's Complicated: The American Teenager Written by: Robin Bowman Publisher: Umbrage

 

Summary: Robin Bowman's five-year journey into the heart of teenage America created a series of 414 "collaborative portraits," wherein she shares her discoveries of a generation now coming of age. In searing and intimate photographs, presented alongside the young people's voices of passion, pride, embarrassment, lust, pain, bewilderment, anxiety, joy, uncertainty, and rage, the book charts the coming of age of the largest generation in America-77 million strong-in every region of the country and every socioeconomic group: from a Texas debutante to teenage gang members in New York City, from a drag queen in Georgia to a coal miner in West Virginia.Bowman's intimate photographs ask us to reconcile preconceived ideas and stereotypes of teenagers with the diversity of individuals in the portraits. This book and the traveling exhibition it accompanies are about the inside lives of these kids and how they see their reality in their own voices.Robin Bowman, a 2005 W. Eugene Smith Memorial fellow, is a photojournalist based in Portland, Maine.