The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart

Over the course of the summer between her freshman and sophomore years, Frankie Landau-Banks, grew several inches, and went from being a skinny, unassuming semi-geeky girl with frizzy hair to a curvy beauty with a sharp wit. The girl that hardly anyone remembered from the year before soon has a hot senior boyfriend, named Matthew Livingson, and is in tight with the popular crowd at her elite boarding school. Frankie discovers that Matthew is head of a secret society on campus – The Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds, that is known mostly for its pranks and for being an all male organization. But Frankie, not wanting to be excluded, schemes to infiltrate the Bassets, and secretly convince them to pull pranks of a decidedly higher caliber, and more political nature.
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks appears at first glance to be a simple story about smart, privileged prep school students, and their relationship problems, but it becomes clear that the story, and characters are much more subtle and pointed than all that. Frankie will not take being excluded from the boys club sitting down, and her actions have far reaching repercussions. But it is not a simple girl power manifesto either. Frankie, although bright, witty, resourceful, and very likeable, acts out of anger at a system that she finds unjust, and does not foresee all that could result. The story is smart, and complex, and will have the reader contemplating it long after the last page is read.

Skate and Destroy: The First 25 Years of Thrasher Magazine, Edited by Jake Phelps

In January of 1981, a bunch of San Francisco skaters published the first issue of Thrasher Magazine. Today Thrasher is better than ever, having chronicled the evolution of skating from its roots, to the thriving sport it is today. Skate and Destroy covers the first 25 years of Thrasher’s history reprinting some of the best original columns, interviews and pictures. Also inside are previously unprinted photos, rejected covers, and other great material never seen before. Awesome photos show the greats like Tony Hawk, Bob Burnquist, and Tony Alva at their best, as well as forgotten heroes of the sport. This is one of the definitive histories of skateboarding. Don’t leave the library without it!

Looking For Alaska By John Green

Miles Halter has a, perhaps unhealthy, interest in famous last words. Some that are particularly resonant for him are those of the poet Francois Rabelais who said on his deathbed, "I go to seek a great perhaps." At sixteen Miles decides to go in search of his own great perhaps, enrolling in a rigorous boarding school In Central Alabama. Miles, who has never done anything adventurous in his life, gratefully says goodbye to his safe and boring existence when he arrives at his new school.
He quickly falls in with a bunch of mischievous brainiacs, led by his math-whiz video gamer roommate "the Colonel," and gorgeous, clever and self-destructive feminist Alaska Young. Miles of course quickly falls in love with Alaska, who of course has a much more interesting and good looking college boyfriend. The group of friends becomes very close, as can only be done through all night talks, shared enmity (in their case, of the rich kids at the school), epic prank pulling, and misbehavior of various kinds. But the story is obviously building up to something. The chapter titles are ominously labeled 108 days before, 100 days before, then there is a page in the middle marked after. What occurs is one of those things which changes your life forever.

Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba

What would you do if you were given the power to cause someone’s death, simply by writing their name in a notebook. The first thought that would occur to most of you would probably be that you would not use the book, that doing so would be murder. And you would be right, of course, it is. But think about it for a moment. What if you were alive in the early 1940s? It’s becoming clear that something evil is occurring in Europe. You could write Adolph Hitler’s name in the book, and save the lives of millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and others that deemed undesirable by The Third Reich. Wouldn’t using the book be justified?
This is the dilemma that faces 17 year old Japanese high school student, Light Yagami. He comes to posses a death note, the notebook of a death god who becomes bored with his work, and drops it into the human world to see what will happen. Light thinks that the death note just a prank, but he soon becomes curious enough to try it. He chooses a man who has killed several innocent people, and is holding eight people hostage in a nursery school. He writes the man’s name in the death note. Forty seconds later the man dies of a heart attack. At first, Light is disturbed by the realization that he has killed someone, but it is not long before he decides that he will assume the responsibility of using the death note, and will decide who lives and dies.
Light deliberately uses his power in such a way that people will notice, in order to demonstrate to people who would do wrong that there is someone watching their misdeeds who will punish them. The authorities also notice the strange pattern of vigilante killings and begin an investigation to try to track down whoever it is that has decided to take justice into their own hands. It would seem to be impossible to uncover Light’s activities, but a secretive genius who goes only by the name L joins the investigation, and is confident that the person or person’s responsible for the killings will be revealed.

Breakdancing Workshop, Thurs. Sept. 3 at 4:00

Hey Teens! Have you always wanted to learn how to do headspins and stalls? Well come out to the Library! at Collister for a demonstration by local breakdancing crew the Boise B-Boys. Learn some moves and find out why b-boying is bigger than ever!

Teen Game Hour, Thurs. Aug. 20 at 4:00

Come by the Library! at Collister this thursday to have a snack, hang out with some friends and play Nintendo Wii.

The Lost Fleet: Dauntless

“The Lost Fleet: Dauntless” is a hard sci-fi
novel by former Surface Warfare Officer John G. Hemry
writing under the pen name Jack Campbell. 
Dauntless is named partly for the flag ship of the fleet,
partly for the SBD Dauntless Dive Bombers
and the airmen who flew them (and because his original
title had been given to another author).
It is the first book in his lost
fleet series of six books.
Hemry took his experience as a Surface Warfare Officer
(the officer in the US Navy that pilots a ship)
to create realistic naval engagement in space. 
The physics is mostly all there. Opposing forces have
to deal with time-late images due to the finite
speed of light.  Ships are ponderous and have to
deal with relativistic distortions as they accelerate
to fractions of the speed of light.
The only time the book strays from strictly realistic
physics is for Faster-Than-Light travel.

Hemry’s protagonist is a Captain John ‘Black Jack’ Geary,
a survivor of the first battle of the war.
He awakes from survival sleep almost a hundred years
after the war began. Only to find himself the highest
ranking officer in a fleet trapped behind enemy lines.
Much to his chagrin he has become a hero of his nation.
He has to deal with not only getting a poorly equipped
and trained force out from behind enemy lines
but also with the expectations of all those he commands.

Hemry took his inspiration from mythical sources
such as the King Arthur myth and the real world
history of the long retreat of ancient Greek
mercenaries from Persia as chronicled in Xenophon’s
March of the Ten Thousand (Anabasis),
including the deaths of all high ranking
officers at the beginning of the book.

Hemry’s gift is in describing situations,
battles, and locations, not
necessarily characters. 
His descriptions are not bad but lacking.  His
protagonist can be a little too heroic
at times and some characters can
be a bit one sided or shallow.

“The Lost Fleet: Dauntless” is a worthwhile read.
It is a good beginners hard sci-fi book and
fans of the genre will not be disappointed. 
In the end it leaves you wanting to read the other books
in the series.  Which is always a good thing.