My abandonment - Peter Rock

Summary: Living with her father in a nature preserve in Portland, Oregon, thirteen-year-old Caroline only merges with the civilized world once a week when they go into the city, but an encounter with a backcountry jogger derails their entire existence. - (Baker & Taylor)

Booklist Reviews

Rock s previous novels and stories have been imbued with a sense of unease and uncertainty (The Unsettling, 2006). So it is with this deeply unsettling and finely wrought tale. It s narrated matter-of-factly by 13-year-old Caroline, who lives furtively in Forest Park, a large nature reserve on the edge of Portland, Oregon, with her father, who has turned his back on society. Their lives revolve around remaining invisible to the larger world. Homeschooled in the woods and at a public library, Caroline appears fully at home with minimal possessions and without much human contact. At first the lives of father and daughter seem nearly idyllic, but Rock deftly ratchets up the uncertainties, and the idyllic edges past the unusual toward the unthinkable and the tragic. Based on a true story (think Krakauer s Into the Wild), My Abandonment is a haunting novel, masterfully told. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.

Check Availability

Wildwood Imperium - Colin Meloy

Wildwood Imperium - Meloy, Colin

Series: The Wildwood Chronicles 

Booklist Reviews
The third tome in the Wildwood Chronicles continues the quirky adventures of 12-year-old Prue as she reenters the Wood to find that the postrevolution world she helped create isn't going especially smoothly. In fact, she finds herself involved with a plot to resurrect Alexei, the automaton prince, who is foretold to bring peace to the land. But there is another resurrection in progress, too: naive teenager Zita is gathering the materials to bring back the evil Alexandra. A third story line—the most purely enjoyable—involves the Unadoptables as they join up with a band of beatnik saboteurs intent on raiding the Titan Tower, where an important hostage is being held. Meloy is the Wes Anderson of authors (characters with names like Ambrose Pupkin are many), and he nails the tone of this gentle, but not inconsequential, adventure; though filled with few genuine surprises, it is a warm, comforting read, and its massive page count allows readers to further lose themselves in the enchanting stroll through some very unusual woods. Final illustrations (including color plates) not seen. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: This best-selling series continues to get a major publisher push: an author-illustrator tour, launch events, limited-edition art prints, stickers, videos, playlists, you name it. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

Check Availability

Wildwood - Colin Meloy

Wildwood - Colin Meloy

Summary: When her baby brother is kidnapped by crows, seventh-grader Prue McKeel ventures into the forbidden Impassable Wilderness--a dangerous and magical forest at the edge of Portland, Oregon--and soon finds herself involved in a war among the various inhabitants.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* If you like stories in which spunky kids emerge from secret tunnels only to be greeted by smartly outfitted badgers operating rickshaws, this is your book. Meloy's debut is the kind of delicate, elaborate fantasy that is so well versed in classic Narnian tropes that it is destined to be enthusiastically embraced. After her baby brother is abducted by crows, 12-year-old Prue is compelled to enter the Impassable Wilderness—an ominous forest just outside of Portland, Oregon. Although Prue is initially joined by her classmate Curtis, the kids are soon split up as they become embroiled in a war between stuffy bureaucrats, bandit separatists, militant birds, and the evil Dowager Governess. The two leads are fairly boilerplate, and some readers may find the constant panoply of helpful, uniformed animals (most likely speaking in English accents) too precious. These elements, though, are more than balanced by flashes of darkness—blood sacrifices, death in battle, and more—that would make the Brothers Grimm proud. Meloy, best known as the literate lead singer of the Decemberists, clearly knows that weird vocabulary is part of the genre's fun and has no qualms dropping 10-dollar words like retinue and totemic. Frequent, droll illustrations further solidify Wildwood as a uniquely alive place—right down to the stubborn blackberries and vengeful ivy. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

Check Availability

Sometimes a great notion: a novel - Ken Kesey

Sometimes a great notion: a novel - Kesey, Ken

Summary: Following the astonishing success of his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey wrote what Charles Bowden calls "one of the few essential books written by an American in the last half century." This wild-spirited tale tells of a bitter strike that rages through a small lumber town along the Oregon coast. Bucking that strike out of sheer cussedness are the Stampers. Out of the Stamper family’s rivalries and betrayals Ken Kesey has crafted a novel with the mythic impact of Greek tragedy.

No Review Available

Check Availability