Tag Archives: book review

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Featured Book: The Mad Potter

This post is a part of an original series created by librarians/media specialists across Central Minnesota featuring books. Please share your take on books you have read recently. If you have a book you would like to showcase, please send your review to our offices

MadPotterTitle: The Mad Potter: George E. Ohr, Eccentric Genius by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan

Review by Maria Burnham, Sauk Rapids-Rice High School Library Media Specialist

I read this book because I have been following the books that my local Chapter and Verse book club are discussing.  For the month of February, we were set to discuss our favorite award winning books.  In an attempt to branch out from what I normally read, I picked up and started to read all of the award winning elementary level books.

This book, in particular, stood out to me as an interesting non-fiction read.  I’ve always been a person who loves art (even though I’m not very good as an artist).  I enjoy the creativity, the story behind a piece, and how a visually-pleasing piece can add to a room.  So I was interested in reading about George E. Ohr, a.k.a. The Mad Potter.

This book is a great choice for any elementary-aged student.  You do not have to “like” or appreciate art to enjoy the life of George Ohr or the creative genius of his work.  The text is a well-told and fast-paced story and the pictures are fascinating!

No matter your age or your interests, be sure to pick up this book.  George E. Ohr is a fella you won’t soon forget!

Academic, Check this out:, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Featured Book: The Bone Season

This post is a part of an original series created by librarians/media specialists across Central Minnesota featuring books. If you have a book you would like to showcase, please send your review to our offices

Title: The Bone Season, by Samantha ShannonBoneSeason2jpg

Review by Maria Burnham, Sauk Rapids-Rice High School Library Media Specialist

I had high hopes for this book.  I had heard that the book was “The Next Hunger Games” which led me to believe I would irresponsibly be staying up until all hours of the night reading, devouring chapter after chapter.  That’s not what happened.  It took me almost a month to read this book, and that hardly ever happens for me.  I am a loyal book finisher–even if I don’t like a book, I do my best to finish it in the off chance the story picks up at the end.  But several times I seriously considered abandoning this book.

Why, you may ask?  Although a dystopian action plotline (which I normally LOVE to read), I found the details of the book to be too–confusing.  Too many minor characters that I never really connected to, too many details that distract from the plotline, and too slow of a start compared to other dystopian books on the shelves.

The Bone Season is about a girl named Paige who is captured and brought to an underworld as a prisoner.  The reader finds out she is captured because of her rare gift–she is clairvoyant.  Paige can walk amongst others’ dreams and read their auras.  Upon her capture, she is assigned to a keeper, a man called the Warden, and it is in this strange relationship that we learn more about Paige’s old life and new assignment in the underworld.

Although parts of the book were intriguing, and I will say that I did have an audible gasp or two at the end of the book, overall, I found the story to be tedious and disengaging.  Others who have read the book have liked it (more than I did), but I have yet to hear anyone say that it is a “must read” for our students.  It’s a good recommendation for someone who likes dystopian fiction, but beyond that, I’m looking forward to [finally] moving on to another YA book.

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Featured Book: Orange is the New Black

Orange_Black

This post is a part of an original series created by librarians/media specialists across Central Minnesota featuring books. If you have a book you would like to showcase, please send your review to our offices

Book: Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman

Review by Katherine Morrow, Branch Librarian, Mille Lacs Lake Community Library

If you’ve seen the Netflicks series Orange is the New Black you may want to pick up the book with the same title.  Though you’ll find Piper and many of the same characters in the memoir, don’t expect as much conflict and drama as the television version.  If you haven’t heard of it, the author, Piper Kerman, who is a Smith graduate, is arrested and incarcerated over 10 years after she committed a drug-running crime.  She is in her mid-thirties in a stable home with her fiancé Larry when she has to surrender to the federal corrections institute in Danbury, CT.  In prison she stands out with her blond hair and college degree.  She bonds with her fellow inmates over inventive ways to use sanitary napkins and confiscated ketchup and also helps them with their schooling and legal cases.

This book dramatizes the problem that was recently highlighted by Attorney General Eric Holder, that too many non-violent individuals are being incarcerated for drug offenses.   Kerman serves her 15 months and is able to return to her former life.  Many of the women she meets are not so fortunate and end up back in prison.

I checked out this book through the ECRL Overdrive site and read it on my Kindle.  Although there was a small wait, I probably got the digital version sooner than I would have as a regular book.

Academic, Check this out:, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Feature Book: Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital

This post is a part of an original series created by librarians/media specialists across Central Minnesota featuring books. If you have a book you would like to showcase, send your review to our offices.

Review by Kathy Parker, Director of Libraries, Media, and Archives, College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University Libraries

Feature Book: Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink

Image of Kathy Parker provided by CSB/SJU.
Image of Kathy Parker provided by CSB/SJU.

Combining the best of both worlds, Five Days at Memorial has the tense plot line, complex characters, and life-and-death flashpoints of a thriller, but it’s actually a meticulously researched work of remarkable reportage.  Fink investigated events at a New Orleans hospital during and after Hurricane Katrina.  Healthcare workers struggled to keep critically ill patients alive as electricity winked off, generators flooded, HVAC systems failed, sleep was unattainable, looters were roving the streets, and rescue was uncertain.  In the end, some staff faced criminal allegations for injecting patients with drugs that hastened their death.   The author carefully avoids judgment, and instead helps readers understand how professionals trying to do their best in a crisis may arrive at very different decisions about how to respond.

As it happens, I was reading this book while updating and expanding our library’s disaster plan.  It made me realize that much of our plan is focused on keeping collections safe, and that I needed to pay more attention to how to keep people safe as well.  I learned some lessons about communication, coordinated responses, and compassion.  Sheri Fink’s book reinforced my fervent hope that I never have to live through such a horrendous disaster as Katrina; and it has given me the opportunity – the luxury, really —  to think about how I might wish decisions would be made should a disaster happen here.

Academic, Check this out:, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Featured Book: The World's Strongest Librarian

This post is a part of an original series created by librarians/media specialists across Central Minnesota featuring books. If you have a book you would like to showcase, send your review to our offices.

Review by Maria Burnham, SRRHS Library Media Specialist

Maria Burnham, SRRH Library Media Specialist
Maria Burnham, SRRH Library Media Specialist

Book Review for The World’s Strongest Librarian by Josh Hanagarne

I originally selected this book because it’s obviously a memoir about being a librarian, something that I can relate to.  However, the book is about so much more than that.  John Hanagarne recalls memories of his childhood as a boy obsessed with reading who also happens to have Tourette’s.  In reading this memoir, I learned about the Mormon church, Tourette’s syndrome, kettleball training, the daily challenges as a public librarian, and the power of unconditional love.  This book made me laugh out loud, mainly in the descriptions of the bizarre scenarios that take place in a large metropolitan public library.  But I also loved the formatting of the book–each chapter started with subject heading and Dewey numbers relating to the topic.  Although the book covers so many aspects of Josh’s life, perhaps the part I loved most is his insight into the power of a library and its place in our democracy.  His extraordinary descriptions of the power of books, information and literacy is bound to make any reader’s heart fill with joy.  If you love books, learning, feel-good stories, libraries, or just want to laugh out loud, this is the book for you.  A-mazing!

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