In one moment, your whole life can change...

On a beautiful June morning, Jane Arrowood is attacked by a shark in shallow water. She loses most of her right arm. She actually loses much more than an arm...Jane is an artist who can no longer draw and a pretty girl who is stared at like a freak. Told in poetry form (like Sonya Sones), Jane struggles to regain her health and find her way in a much-changed world. Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham

Which would you choose: safety or freedom?

In the future, our country is now called United Safer States of America. When you play "sports," you are encased in padding from head to toe and padded mats replace cinder track. Sportsmanship is key; calling an opponent a bad name could get you sent to prison. That's exactly where Bo ends up when he insults someone on the track team. Will he survive life in a penal colony in the wilderness of Canada, making frozen pizzas for the MacDonalds Corporation 18 hours a day? In the end, he will have to choose. Will it be freedom or safety? Rash by Pete Hautman is in the Fiction section.

Did you like "The Other Boleyn Girl?"

"The Other Boleyn Girl" by Phillipa Gregory is coming to theaters soon as a film starring Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johannsen. If you enjoyed the book and have read Gregory's other historical fiction outings, why not try out an older writer who influenced Phillipa Gregory? Anya Seton's books have been reissued with introductions by Ms. Gregory. Explore the early days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony with The Winthrop Woman. Discover where the Tudor dynasty began by meeting Katherine. Follow the last religious conflict in Jacobite England in Devil Water. Travel back in time to sail the seas with Viking and explore the origins of the King Arthur legend in Avalon.

New book mini-list

Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed “Using the Mayan empire, Easter Island, the Anasazi, and other examples, the author shows how a combination of environmental factors such as habitat destruction, the loss of biodiversity, and degradation of the soil caused complex, flourishing societies to suddenly disintegrate.”

Michel Laclotte, A Key to the Louvre: Memoirs of a Curator Post-DeGaulle France from the former curator.

Paul Robert Walker, Remember Little Big Horn: Indians, Soldiers, and Scouts Tell their Stories Drama of Native American History, with lots of primary source material

Jeff Sypeck, Becoming Charlemagne: Europe, Baghdad, and the Empires of A.D. 800 “Sypeck, who teaches medieval literature at the University of Maryland, paints a splendid portrait of the emperor's various supporters, including Isaac, his Jewish envoy to Baghdad; Harun al-Rashid, the legendary caliph of Baghdad who, though the two never met, believed that he and Charlemagne would be great military and political companions; and the elephant, Abul Abaz, a gift from Harun.”

Judith Bloom Fradin, 5,000 Miles to Freedom: Ellen and William Craft’s Flight from Slavery “Ellen is a light-skinned African American, daughter of the master who raped her mother. Disguised as a wealthy Southern gentleman, she escapes with her husband, William, disguised as her slave, and they travel by train and steamboat to freedom in Boston. When their astonishing story makes the fugitive couple famous, slave catchers come after them, so the Crafts leave for England, where they continue their abolitionist work, until their return home after the Civil War.”

Robert E. Bonner, The Soldier’s Pen: Firsthand Impressions of the Civil War “Bonner uses the letters, journal entries, and sketches of 16 Civil War infantrymen, all previously unpublished, to convey the experiences of war as recounted by those who witnessed it at its most elemental level.”

Best Books of the Year!

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang is the Printz Award winner for best young adult novel of the year. This graphic novel tells 3 interrelated stories about feeling alone and isolated, hating being different, having a crush and more.

New Science books:a mini-list

American Museum of Natural History, Ocean: the World’s Last Wilderness Revealed. “Crafted by devoted scientists and visual artists, Ocean offers page after page of stunning images and vital information about the very heartbeat of planet Earth.”

Dennis Fradin, With a Little Luck. “Whether Fradin is writing about the discovery of penicillin, Neptune, pulsars, or the Dead Sea Scrolls, he smoothly combines personal stories with fascinating science, technology, and history.”

Colin Tudge, The Tree. “British biologist and science-writer-extraordinaire Tudge offers a sumptuously specific tour of the phenomenal world of trees.”

Eugene Linden, The Winds of Change. “Restrained in tone, Linden's presentation of scientists' theories on historical climate change will provoke readers concerned about the implications of global warming for modern civilization.”

Richard Dawkins, The Ancestor’s Tale. A pilgrimage back through four billion years of life on earth. Evolution with a Chaucerian twist!

My Einstein Essays by 23 scientists/thinkers, including Jeremy Bernstein, Gino C. Sergré and Maria Spiropulu.Titles of their pieces range from "Einstein, Moe, and Joe" to "The Greatest Discovery Einstein Didn't Make".

Miyoko Chu, Songbird Journey. Chu, an ornithologist at Cornell, follows bird migration through all four seasons and scientists’ techniques for tracking them.

Tim Flannery, The Weather Makers. A history of climate change and how it will likely unfold this century.

Bruce Stutz, Chasing Spring. Stutz tracks spring in the Appalachians, Louisiana, the Arizona desert, the Rockies, and Alaska.

Erik Reece Lost Mountain Exposes the coal industry's destruction of the mountains of eastern Kentucky..

If you liked "The Diary of Anne Frank..."

In a colonial world of the future, Toni V. is a teenager working on a demolition crew. His job is to remove rubble from a city recently devastated by a war. In the rubble, he finds a plastic package. Inside the package is Pelly D's diary. She is just a normal teen girl: a little selfish, a little foolish, a little thoughtful. She has crushes on boys, she worries about her skin, she tries to ignore the hate that is building, even in her high school. People are deciding that certain strains of DNA are superior to others. As the winds of an imminent war between groups of people based on the superiority of their DNA swirl around her, Pelly tries to make sense of what's happening. And Toni begins to realize that his government has been lying to him.

Pelly D. will remind you of another remarkable young teen named Anne Frank.