Recent Acquisitions at the Doylestown Library

Here are just a few of the new books availalble at the Doylestown Library. The list is heavy on non-fiction this time - in a variety of subjects.

The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Lyson - Leyson, who died in January 2013 at age 83, was number 289 on Schindler’s List and its youngest member. In this memoir, completed shortly before he died, Leyson recounts his life in Poland. He was ten years old when the Nazis invaded Poland and just thirteen when Leyson’s father persuaded Schindler to let ‘Little Leyson’ and other family members find refuge in Schindler’s factory. Leyson was so short, he had to stand on a wooden box to reach the machinery. Leyson makes it clear that being one of ‘Schindler’s Jews’, while offering a shred of hope, never shielded them from the chaos and evil that surrounded them. Although this is a book recommended for children 9-11, it is a book that adults will also enjoy reading.

 Early Decision: Based on a True Frenzy by Lucy Crawford - If it’s fall, it must be time for high school seniors to prepare essays for early decision applications. This novel follows five students over one autumn as Anne, ‘the application whisperer’, helps the five cram for SATs, craft their applications and perfect the Common Application.  The process, warped as it is by money, connections, competition and parental mania, threatens to crush their independence just as their adulthood is beginning. This is a novel, but it is based heavily on the author’s personal experiences as an ‘application whisperer.’ Non-parents and others immune to the cult of the Tiger Mother may find all this a bit tedious, but much like The Nanny Diaries, it’s sincere and readable.

 The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year Old Boy with Autism by Higashida, Naoki  - In 2013 it’s a rare person who doesn’t know at least one person who is classified as autistic. Anyone struggling to understand autism will be grateful for this book and its translation. The 13-year old Japanese author illuminates autism from within, making a connection with everyone who finds autism frustrating, mysterious or impenetrable. This book takes the form of straightforward questions and answers that are a few paragraphs to a few pages long. Higashida answers even the most delicate questions that people want to know. He describes the difficulty of expressing through words what the brain wants to say, the challenge of focusing and ordering experience, the obsessiveness of repetition, the comfort found in actions that others might find odd, and the frustration of being the source of others' frustration. He shares his unique point of view not only of autism but on life itself.

 The Returned by Jason Mott - We’ve all wished at one time or another that someone we love, who has died, would come back for just one more day. In this novel, that’s exactly what happens. People are returning from the dead and no one knows why. There’s no explanation, just a vast influx of people who are returning just as they were when they died…some died one hundred years ago, some fifty years ago; there are senile old women as well as young children. Some consider it a miracle, others the work of the devil. Whatever it is, the planet now has to deal with a many more people who have the same needs as those already here: food, water, shelter, sanitation. Globally, the event of the return brings out the best and worst of human nature. Told mainly from the point of view of Lucille and Harold Hargrave, an elderly couple whose son, Jacob, returns to them decades after he died at age eight, this book gives an astute look at a world gone awry. Poet and debut author Mott has written a breathtaking novel that navigates emotional minefields with realism and grace.

 Masterminds and Wingmen: Helping Your Son Cope with Schoolyard Power, Locker-Room Tests, Girlfriends, and the New Rules of Boy World by Rosalind Wiseman - From the author who brought us Queen Bees and Wannabes, a book about our daughters and their world, comes a how-to book for raising our sons. Using scientific research and information gained from more than 150 boys, Wiseman examines the complex world that is boyhood and young manhood. Based on the concept that there are unwritten rules to ‘act-like-a-man’ known to every male child, Wiseman explores how these rules stop boys from expressing their emotions and asking for help. Wiseman breaks boys into groups and helps parents understand where their son fits in and gives advice on how to converse with a boy so that they receive actual information rather than a sullen stare. A wealth of sensible information for parents of boys.

Enjoy!