Friday, July 30, 2010

Friday Fiction - Mo Willems: “Elephant and Piggie”

Children’s author and illustrator Mo Willems’ award-winning “Elephant and Piggie” first-reader series continues to charm readers both young and old. Featuring two lovable and funny characters — an optimistic (and sometimes reckless) pig and a cautious, pessimistic elephant — these books make reading irresistible to beginning readers. Author of the Caldecott Honor-winning books Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity, and Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Willems' other groundbreaking picture books include Leonardo, the Terrible Monster and Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct.
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Children who sat on their parents' laps to have “Pigeon” read to them will eagerly take the plunge with “Elephant and Piggie” to start reading on their own. The following "E & Ps" are available in the Copper Queen Library’s Children’s Collection:
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Are You Ready to Play Outside? (2008) - In a refreshing reversal of their usual roles, the often-despondent Gerald proves to be a valuable friend to exuberant Piggie when her own naturally sunny disposition fails her. Fretful about the sudden rain that threatens to ruin an afternoon of running, skipping, and jumping, Piggie declares emphatically that she is "not a happy pig." Poor Gerald patiently weathers the rain and her brief tantrum and, as readers might expect, the pair soon make the most of the situation when two ecstatic worms cavorting in the rain inspire them to find happiness in wet-weather play.
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Can I Play Too? (2010) - Gerald is careful. Piggie is not. Piggie cannot help smiling. Gerald can. Gerald and Piggie are best friends. In Can I Play Too?, Gerald and Piggie meet a new snake friend who wants to join in a game of catch. But don't you need arms to catch?
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Elephants Cannot Dance! (2009) - Piggie tries to teach Gerald some new moves. But will Gerald teach Piggie something even more important?
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I Am Going (2010) - The mercurial friendship of Elephant and Piggie survives another minor (but seemingly life-ending!) tiff. The two are basking in shared bliss when Piggie announces, “Well, I am going.” Elephant proceeds to get histrionic, clawing at his ears and wailing, “Who will I skip with? Who will I play Ping-Pong with? Who will I wear a silly hat with? WHO WILL I SKIP AND PLAY PING-PONG IN A SILLY HAT WITH?!?!”
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I Am Invited to a Party! (2007) - Piggie is invited to her first party. She doesn't know what to wear, though, so she asks her best friend Elephant for help. Elephant's advice is odd to say the least, so Piggie will try on all sorts of zany outfits before finally arriving at the party for a hilarious surprise.

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I Love My New Toy! (2008) - Piggie has a great new toy, although she’s not exactly sure what it does. Elephant thinks that perhaps it’s a throwing toy. And throw it he does, right up in the air, and then it smashes in two pieces. Uh-oh. He is by turns ashamed, chagrined, and apologetic, while Piggie is mad, sad, and finally embarrassed when Squirrel comes around and spots the toy as one of the “break-and-snap” variety and “fixes” it for them. Realizing the toy’s as good as new, the friends also realize that playing together is more fun than any old toy!

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I Will Surprise My Friend! (2008) - Squirrel surprises his friend by hiding behind a tiny rock and yelling, “Boo!” The squirrels have such fun that Elephant and Piggie decide to try it too, but alas, surprising each other, when both know a surprise is coming, isn’t that easy.

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My Friend Is Sad (2007) - Piggie tries hard to cheer up her dejected friend. She disguises herself as a cowboy, clown, and robot, but Gerald doesn't recognize her and is sad because she isn't there to enjoy the fun. Without missing a beat, Piggie points out that he needs new glasses.

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Pigs Make Me Sneeze (2009) - When Gerald cannot stop sneezing, he is sure he is allergic to pigs. His effervescent best friend takes things in stride until the fits of sneezing threaten to end their friendship. When Gerald sees Dr. Cat, he decides that his continued sneezing means he is also allergic to cats. When the doctor informs him that he is sick with a cold, the elephant is elated and rushes to tell his best friend. Unfortunately, now Piggie's sneezing, too!
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There Is a Bird on Your Head! (2007) - Gerald discovers that there is something worse than a bird on your head — two birds on your head! Can Piggie help her best friend?

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Today I Will Fly! (2007) - Piggie is determined to fly. But Gerald the elephant knows that it's impossible — isn't it?

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Watch Me Throw the Ball (2009) - Gerald is determined to teach Piggie that ball-throwing is serious business... but Piggie is just as determined to have serious fun.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Friday Fiction... in the "Library Without Walls"

--by Peg White
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One of our goals at the Copper Queen Library is to deliver high-quality content of all sorts to Bisbee's readers, movie viewers, and program attendees. One way we accomplish this is by featuring many interesting speakers on a variety of subjects and by adding more books, CDs, DVDs, newspapers, and magazines to our carefully cultivated collections.
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In the Tech Age, the Internet helps us expand our on-site collections in many ways -- letting us link out to full-text magazines, downloadable audiobooks, and, in this post, to feature-length film noir titles from the Internet Archive -- and helps us stretch our limited dollars.
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So, from time to time in our "What's New?" blog, we plan to share information about (and links to) some of the excellent content available on the web and, by doing so, to open the door to the "library without walls."
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The films listed in this week's "Friday Fiction" post are just a few of the many full-length feature fiction titles available in the "Film Noir Collection" at the Internet Archive. The Archive is also home to many more non-noir movies -- as well as music, books, audiobooks, podcasts, documentaries, television shows, speeches, games, software, and the Wayback Machine (earlier versions of web pages), as well as a wide variety of other fascinating material. To watch, just click on the title, follow Archive instructions, and enjoy! (Depending on your home computer and media set-up, you might even be able to view these on your home TV screen...)
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Beat the Devil (John Huston) - This movie has not become a cult classic for nothing. Among its other merits, it is one of the few films where a film noir is mixed with a comedy. It’s a who's who of actors of its vintage -- including Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley and Peter Lorre.
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The Big Combo (Joseph Lewis) - Police captain Peterson (Robert Middleton) storms into the office of police Lt. Leonard Diamond (Cornel Wilde), critical of Diamond's spending exorbitant amounts of the city budget and his own personal money in an attempt to arrest a crime boss Mr. Brown (Richard Conte). Peterson says it is a waste of time trying to find something incriminating to bring Mr. Brown to justice because his crime combo does business without accounting books...
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D.O.A. (Leo C. Popkin) - Directed by Rudolph Maté, D.O.A. is considered a noir classic. The frantically-paced plot revolves around a doomed man's quest to find out who has poisoned him – and why – before he dies. The film begins with a scene called "perhaps one of cinema's most innovative opening sequences" by a BBC reviewer. The scene is a long, behind-the-back tracking sequence featuring Frank Bigelow (O'Brien) walking through a hallway into a police station to report his own murder...
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Fear in the Night (L.B. Merman, William H. Pine, William C. Thomas) - A film noir shocker, based on the story Nightmare by Cornell Woorlich, in which average Joe Vince Grayson (De Forest Kelley) dreams he murders someone and wakes up to find it may not have been a dream. This is worth it for the clever plot twists alone.
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He Walked By Night (Bryan Foy) - Gripping film noir crime drama about a manhunt for a ruthless killer who plays a deadly cat and mouse game with the police. Starring Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, Whit Bissell, and Jack Webb, this movie was the basis for "Dragnet."
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Kansas City Confidential (Edward Small) - Four robbers hold up an armored truck, getting away with over a million dollars in cash. Joe Rolfe (John Payne), a down-on-his-luck flower delivery truck driver, is accused of being involved and is beaten up by the local police. Released due to lack of evidence, Joe, following the clues to a Mexican resort, decides to look for the men who set him up and get revenge.
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Panic In The Streets (Elia Kazan) - One night in the New Orleans slums, vicious hoodlum Blackie (Jack Palance) and his friends kill an illegal immigrant who won too much in a card game. Next morning, Dr. Clint Reed (Richard Widmark - this time not seen pushing little old ladies in wheelchairs down the stairs) of the Public Health Service confirms the dead man had pneumonic plague...
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Please Murder Me (Jack J. Gross) - How's that for a title? Lawyer Raymond Burr (seeming very much like Perry Mason) brilliantly defends Angela Lansbury, who seems certain to be found guilty of murdering her husband, who was Burr's best friend. Instead of spoiling it for you, I'll just say that a couple of surprises lie ahead for him...
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Scarlet Street (Fritz Lang) - "A sultry woman's boyfriend has her hook a middle-aged clerk for his money, leading first to ironic and then tragic complications. Second of a pair of closely related middle-class nightmares directed by Fritz Lang. (Remake of Jean Renoir's 1931 French film, La Chienne.)" (quotation from noir expert Spencer Selby)
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Shock (Aubrey Schenck) - This post-World War II suspense thriller sets off an emotional roller coaster after the psychologically fragile wife of a POW (Anabel Shaw) witnesses a brutal murder from a hotel window while waiting to be reunited with her husband (Frank Latimer). By the time he arrives, she's nearly comatose with shock. The hotel's psychiatrist (Vincent Price) is called in to help... Film noir classic, noted for its dark themes, stark camera angles and high-contrast lighting.
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The Stranger (Sam Spiegel) - Set in Connecticut after World War II, The Stranger is a cat and mouse game between Wilson (Edward G. Robinson), a member of the Allied War Crimes Commission and Franz Kindler (Orson Welles), a Nazi who has assumed the false identity of Dr. Charles Rankin. To complete his new intelligentsia disguise, Kindler marries Mary Longstreet, daughter of a Supreme Court justice.
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Too Late for Tears (Byron Haskin) - This is pure noir. Lizabeth Scott and Arthur Kennedy are a couple who receive a satchel full of money that was intended for someone else (Dan Duryea). He wants to turn the cash over to the authorities; she wants to keep it---no matter what the consequenses: "Jane, Jane, what's happening to us -- what's happening? The money sits down there in an old leather bag and yet it's tearing us apart. It's poison, Jane..."
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If these whet your whistle to explore more, connect to the Internet Archive and see what you can find!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Friday Fiction (& Non-Fiction, Too): 2010 Added Titles

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This Friday, we're continuing to share the list of authors and titles (published in 2010) added so far to our "New Fiction" collection (see last week's post for more "New Fiction" titles). And today, we're adding something more.
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This week, "Non-Fiction," "Audiobook," and "Movie" titles published in 2010 are also on the list. (Of course, we continue to add fantastic titles published in 2010 and in previous years, too). It's quite a variety! If anything looks interesting, be sure to log into your account (or give us a call) and place a hold on it.

More New Fiction Published in 2010

  • Bender, Aimee. The particular sadness of lemon cake
    Carey, Peter. Parrot and Olivier in America
    Child, Lee. 61 hours: a Reacher novel
    Cronin, Justin. The passage
    Egan, Jennifer. A visit from the Goon Squad
    Ellis, Bret Easton. Imperial bedrooms
    Erdrich, Louise. Shadow tag
    Fairstein, Linda A. Hell gate
    Ferris, Joshua. The unnamed
    Hamann, H. T. Anthropology of an American girl
    Hart, Erin. False mermaid
    Koryta, Michael. So cold the river
    McEwan, Ian. Solar
    Nicholls, David. One day

New Non-Fiction Published in 2010

  • Aaronovitch, David. Voodoo histories: the role of the conspiracy theory in shaping modern history
    Ariely, Dan. The upside of irrationality: the unexpected benefits of defying logic at work and at home
    Bartiromo, Maria. The 10 laws of enduring success
    Bush, Laura. Spoken from the heart
    Clay, Heather. Losing Charlotte
    Corbett, Christopher. The poker bride: the first Chinese in the Wild West
    Fishman, Loren. Yoga for osteoporosis: the complete guide
    Gardner, Renée. Southern Arizona's most haunted
    Glass, Charles. Americans in Paris: life and death under Nazi occupation
    Hayhurst, Dirk. The bullpen gospels: major league dreams of a minor league veteran
    Jessop, Carolyn. Triumph: life after the cult - survivor's lessons
    Leonard, Annie. The story of stuff: how our obsession with stuff is trashing the planet, our communities, and our health - and a vision for change
    Miller, Tom. Revenge of the saguaro: offbeat travels through America's Southwest
    Olson, Lynne. Citizens of London: the Americans who stood with Britain in its darkest, finest hour
    Penney, Alexandra. The bag lady papers: the priceless experience of losing it all
    Peterson, Roger Tory. Peterson field guide to birds of western North America (4th)
    Schuyler, Nick. Not without hope
    Shapiro, Dani. Devotion: a memoir
    Shelden, Michael. Mark Twain, man in white: the grand adventure of his final years
    Smith, Patti. Just kids
    Trussoni, Danielle. Angelology
    Vedantam, Shankar. The hidden brain: how our unconscious minds elect presidents, control markets, wage wars, and save our lives
    Weiner, Jonathan. Long for this world: the strange science of immortality
    Wells, Spencer. Pandora's seed: the unforseen cost of civilization
    Wiles, Rich. Behind the wall: life, love, and struggle in Palestine

New Audiobooks Published in 2010

  • Berry, Julie. The Amaranth enchantment
    Chevalier, Tracy. Remarkable creatures
    Chima, Cinda Williams. The Demon King
    Doig, Ivan. Dancing at the Rascal Fair
    Fairstein, Linda A. Hell gate
    Farmer, Philip José. The dark design
    Gordon, Roderick. Freefall
    Klause, Annette Curtis. The silver kiss
    Lupica, Mike. The million-dollar throw
    McDermid, Val. Beneath the bleeding
    Phillips, Caryl. In the falling snow
    Picoult, Jodi. House rules
    Spragg, Mark. Bone fire

New Movies Released in 2010

  • Bright star
    Coco before Chanel
    Good hair
    The hurt locker
    In the loop
    The messenger
    Precious: based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire
    The road
    A serious man
    Service
    2012
    Up in the air
    Where the wild things are

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Friday Fiction: 2010 Added Titles

This Friday, we're doing something a bit different -- letting you know which authors and titles published in 2010 we've added so far to our New Fiction collection (and remember, this is just the Fiction list -- we've also added new titles in audiobooks, the children's collections, and Non-Fiction!). To see a complete list, search the online catalog and specify "2010" as the Publication Date.

We've added quite a variety... If anything looks interesting, be sure to log into your account (or give us a call) and place a hold on it.
  • Abulhawa, Susan. Mornings in Jenin : a novel
  • Allende, Isabel. Island beneath the sea : a novel
  • Baldacci, David. Deliver us from evil
  • Bass, Elizabeth. Miss you most of all
  • Black, Benjamin. Elegy for April : a novel
  • Black, Robin. If I loved you, I would tell you this : stories
  • Blake, Sarah. The postmistress
  • Box, C. J. Nowhere to run
  • Burcell, Robin. The bone chamber
  • Burke, Alafair. 212 : a novel
  • Camilleri, Andrea. The wings of the Sphinx
  • Clark, Mary Higgins. The shadow of your smile
  • Coben, Harlan. Caught
  • Deaver, Jeffery. The burning wire : a Lincoln Rhyme novel
  • Delinsky, Barbara. Not my daughter
  • Evanovich, Janet. Sizzling sixteen
  • Franklin, Ariana. A murderous procession
  • George, Elizabeth. This body of death : a novel
  • Glukhovskiĭ, Dmitriĭ. Metro 2033
  • Green, Simon R. The good, the bad, and the uncanny
  • King, Lily. Father of the rain
  • Kostova, Elizabeth. The swan thieves : a novel
  • Larsson, Stieg. The girl who kicked the hornet's nest
  • Lipsyte, Sam. The ask
  • Martini, Steve. The rule of nine
  • Mercer, Ken. Slow fire
  • Michaels, Fern. Return to sender
  • Mitchell, David. The thousand autumns of Jacob De Zoet : a novel
  • Mosley, Walter. Known to evil
  • Norman, Howard A. What is left the daughter
  • Oliveira, Robin. My name is Mary Sutter
  • Parker, Robert B. Split image
  • Parker, Robert B. Blue-eyed devil
  • Parker, T. Jefferson. Iron river
  • Patterson, James. Worst case : a novel
  • Picoult, Jodi. House rules : a novel
  • Pilcher, Robin. The long way home
  • Preston, Douglas J. Fever dream
  • Robards, Karen. Shattered
  • Robb, J. D. Fantasy in death
  • Roberts, Nora. Savor the moment
  • Scottoline, Lisa. Think twice
  • Steel, Danielle. Big girl : a novel
  • Steel, Danielle. Family ties : a novel
  • Turow, Scott. Innocent