Ukiah YA Librarians Recommend

The Queen of the Tearling - Erika Johansen

Kelsea was raised in isolation.  Taught in secret her country’s history, she knew the day would come when she would take over her kingdom, but didn’t know just how much her kingdom had fallen into disarray.   With the world watching, Kelsea must make some quick decisions on just what type of queen she wants to be.

Golden - Jessi Kirby

Parker Frost has always been a good girl.  Best in her class, graduating with honors, and up for a full scholarship for Stanford, her life seems to be right on track.  That is, until she finds a notebook of a student who died ten years ago; one of those girls who seemed to have it all.  Parker decides to read it, and begins to find out just how complex life can be, and how choices, even everyday little ones, can really make you into the person you will become

The Impossible Knife of Memory – Laurie Halse Anderson

For the past five years, Hayley Kincain and her father, Andy have been on the road, never staying long in one place as he struggles to escape the demons that have tortured him since his return from Iraq. Now they are back in the town where he grew up so Hayley can attend school. Perhaps, for the first time, Hayley can have a normal life, put aside her own painful memories, even have a relationship with Finn, the hot guy who obviously likes her but is hiding secrets of his own.                  

April is Poetry Month

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – EARTH DAY 2013

Posted April 24, 2013

Julia Butterfly Hill

OFFERINGS TO LUNA

A tree

a life so many years gone by

history bound with each new ring and every scar

i lie nestled in Her arms

i listen to all She has to say

She speaks to me through my bare feet…my hands

She speaks to me on the wind…and in the rain

telling me stories born long before my time

Wisdom

as only Ancient Elders know

Truths

passed to me through Nature’s perfect lips

She cries

Her overwhelming grief

sap that clings to me…to my soul

i wrap my arms around Her

offering the only solace that I know

giving myself as the only gift I have to give

a pitiful offering

to a Goddess such as this but of myself

it is all that I have to give

April is Nation Poetry Month

Ukiah Library Poem of the Day
April 16, 2013

Pablo Neruda

Keeping Quiet

Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still

 for once on the face of the earth, let's not speak in any language;

 let's stop for a second, and not move our arms too much.

It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines;

 we would all be together in a sudden strangeness.

 Fisherman in the cold sea would not harm the whales

and the man gathering salt would not hurt his hands.

Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas, wars with fire,

 victories with no survivors, would put on clean clothes

 and walk about with their brothers in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused with total inactivity.

Life is what it is about...

If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving,

 and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence

 might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves

and of threatening ourselves with death.

Perhaps the earth can teach us as when everything seems to be dead in winter and later proves to be alive.  Now I'll count to twelve and you keep quiet and I will go.

April is National Poetry Month

 Ukiah Library Poem of the Day
April 9, 2013

Prayer

Galway Kinnell

Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.

April is National Poetry Month

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – April 6, 2013

William Wordsworth (b. April 7, 1770)

LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING

I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And ‘tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,

Their thoughts I cannot measure: -

But the least motion which they made,

It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Nature’s holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

April is National Poetry Month

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – April 6, 2013

MARY OLIVER

THE MORNING PAPER

Read one newspaper daily (the morning edition

is the best

for by evening you know that you at least

have lived through another day)

and let the disasters, the unbelievable

yet approved decisions,

soak in.

I don’t need to name the countries,

ours among them.

What keeps us from falling down, our faces

to the ground; ashamed, ashamed?

April is National Poetry Month

Ukiah Library Poem of the Day
April 4, 2013

Neil Gaiman

“House”

Sometimes I think it’s like I live in a big giant head on a hilltop

made of papier mache, a big giant head of my own head.

I polish the eyes which would be windows, or
mow the lawn, I mean this is my house we’re talking about here

even if it is a big giant papier mache head that looks just like mine.

And people who go past
in cars or buses or see the house the head on the hill from trains 

they think the house is me.
I’ll be sleeping there, or polishing the eyes, or weeding the lawn,

but no-one will see me, no-one would look.
And no-one would ever come. And if I waved no-one even knows it was me waving.

They’d all be looking in the wrong place, at the head on the hill.
I can see your house from here.

April is National Poetry Month

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – April 3, 2013

MARGE PIERCY

The ark of consequence

The classic rainbow shows as an arc,

a bridge strung in thinning clouds,

but I have seen it flash a perfect circle,

rising and falling and rising again

through the octave of colors,

a sun shape rolling like a wheel of light.

Commonly it is a fraction of a circle,

a promise only partial, not a banal

sign of safety like a smile pin,

that rainbow cartoon affixed to vans

and baby carriages.  No, it promises

only, this world will not self-destruct.

Account the rainbow a boomerang of liquid

light, foretelling rather that what we

toss out returns in the water table;

flows from the faucet into our bones.

What we shoot up into orbit falls

to earth one night through the roof.

Think of it as a promise that what

we do continues in an arc

of consequence, flickers in our

children’s genes, collects in each

spine and liver, gleams in the apple,

coats the down of the drowning auk.

When you see the rainbow iridescence

shiver in the oil slick, smeared

on the waves of the poisoned river,

shudder for the covenant broken, for we

are given only this floating round ark

with the dead moon for company and warning.