Happy Holidays from the West Allis Public Library!

From all of us at the West Allis Public Library, we wish you a very happy holiday season. Remember the Library will be closed Friday, December 25th. We'll be open from 9 am-6 pm Saturday, December 26th.

If you got a smartphone, tablet, or e-reader for Christmas, did you know that you can download library books onto your device? If you have questions, be sure to stop by. We'll be happy to help.

Battle Lines: A Graphic History of the Civil War by Ari Kelman

Less of a history than an examination of the lives of citizens caught in the maelstrom of the American Civil War, Battle Lines: A Graphic History of the Civil War uses its drawings very effectively to depict the horrors of war. Each chapter begins with a news report of Civil War events. The chapter then continues with an illustrated slice of life of ordinary people and the effect of war on their existence. Soldiers, wives, children, slaves, doctors, nurses, immigrants, gravediggers and farmers are some of the groups represented in the excellent drawings as they face fear, death, hunger, injury, amputation and all the other hardships that war brings to both civilians and soldiers. To write Battles Lines: A Graphic History of the Civil War, artist Jonathan Fetter-Vorm and historian Ari Kelman formed a partnership and created a brief but accurate account of the four year struggle between North and South. They have created not a "graphic novel" but a "graphic history" in which art, as art should, depicts not just the facts but also the emotions of war.

Letters to Santa Claus by Pat Koch, Head Elf

Letters to Santa are synonymous with the holidays. How else is Santa Claus supposed to know what's on those holiday lists? When children (and even adults) address their letters to Santa Claus, quite often they wind up going to Santa Claus, Indiana, a little town in southern Indiana. After being asked to play Santa Claus while being stationed in New York during World War I, Raymond Joseph Yellig promised that if he made it through the war, he would forever be Santa Claus. Since his death, his daughter Pat has worked with a team of elves, to continue to answer the letters that begin to arrive in the small town come November.

This book, Letters to Santa, features many letters written by children and adults asking for things as simple as warm underwear to a tricycle to a new husband. Many of the letters ask Santa to please remember those who are less fortunate. Many of the children writing come from households which might not necessarily be as affluent, so their letter to Santa is their only hope of getting a Shirley Temple doll or a computer.

Images of the actual letters sent to Santa have been included in this book. Organized by decade with letters dating back to the 1930s, this book is quite entertaining to look at. From the letter from Richard Sims telling Santa how he'll leave a bottle of beer and a liverwurst sandwich out for him on Christmas Eve to the letter from Sabrina just wanting her parents to stop arguing, this book will make you feel the hope that we all still look for as the holiday season approaches.

The Hours Count by Jillian Cantor

From the author of Margot, comes a new historical fiction book set in New York from 1947-1953. In The Hours Count, Cantor begins to weave the story of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Millie Stein together. Millie, her Russian immigrant husband Ed, and toddler son David, who doesn't speak, have just moved to the more upscale Knickerbocker Village apartments. Ed pays no attention to Millie or David as he's gone to work all day and comes home to drown his sorrows with vodka. Feeling completely alone and in desperate need for a friend, Millie meets her neighbor Ethel Rosenberg, and they bond over motherhood.

With World War II just over and the Soviet Union becoming more powerful, the United States is on the brink of the Cold War. With Communism, Joe McCarthy's Communist hunt, espionage, and the threat of an atomic bomb on the horizon, much of America is on high alert. When Millie meets Jake, a psychotherapist, at a party held by the Rosenbergs, she begins to question everything about her life. Is Ed really who he says he is? Could he be a KBG spy? As Jake works with David on his speech issues, it's clear to see that Jake isn't necessarily who he says he is either. Millie and Ethel's friendship winds together even more as the FBI begins to close in the Rosenbergs. As she sees her friend's life begin to unravel, Millie begins to realize that her life isn't what she once she thought either.

Paying close attention to detail, Cantor paints a clear picture of the hysteria that ensued surrounding McCarthy's Communist witch hunt. Although Millie is a fictional character, Cantor has researched the Rosenbergs and told an interesting story of a dark time in American history.

Happy Thanksgiving from the West Allis PublicLibrary!

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at the West Allis Public Library! The West Allis Public Library Staff Reads blog is taking a break over the Thanksgiving holiday. Remember that we're closed today Friday, November 27th, but we'll reopen tomorrow Saturday, November 28th with our normal hours. Take today to snuggle up and read a great book.

Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner

Rachel Blum has had a congenital heart defect from birth, one which she says has left her with a broken heart. Born into a loving family with parents who loving dote on her, Rachel can be a bit spoiled. After spending time in and out of the hospital until she was eight years old, Rachel became a "pro at this hospital thing." Her life will change forever the night she tells a story to a scared boy with a broken arm who is all alone in the hospital ER.

Andy Landis is the only child to a single parent, sometimes absent mother. Andy, whose father is African American and whose mother is white, doesn't quite fit in. With a father who is presumed dead and a mother who works all the time, but can never seem to make ends meet, Andy is often forced to wear clothing from the donation pile at church--even if it winds up being from his arch enemy in school. Headed down the wrong path, Andy meets his neighbor Mr. Sills who acts as a stand-in father.  After throwing a brick through a car windshield one night, Andy's mom suggests he channel all of his anger into running. From then on, Andy runs.

Little did Rachel and Andy know that their meeting in a hospital ER would change the course of their lives. Told in alternating view points for the next thirty years, the stories of Rachel and Andy lives begin to unfold. Coming from different walks of life, Rachel and Andy's love seems to defy it all. Weiner once again does a great job telling the story in Who Do you Love and leaves the reader questioning what true love really feels like.

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

It sounds like the opening of a joke: marine biologist, soldier and famous rapper are all on a beach… These three strangers are all walking on a Bar Beach in Lagos, Nigeria when they are interrupted by the sound of an explosion followed by a rising wall of water from the ocean.  The three are sucked out to sea and miraculously, re-deposited on the sand later unharmed.  Then, the unthinkable happens: the representative of an alien race makes first contact with Earth. 

The story of the three strangers picks up pace as we meet the alien envoy herself: a being who can change her appearance at will; a “woman” the biologist names Ayodele.  Soon, everyone is trying to meet the alien and use her for their own ends: young men hoping for money, priests who want to “convert” the entire alien race, crazies who are convinced the world is ending.  Panic engulfs the masses and we see the three strangers and Ayodele fighting to convince people that the aliens are here because they love the potential of Nigeria and they want to live among humans. 

Okorafor does a great job of describing the invisible anxiety that lies underneath all of Lagos in these new, uncertain times.  She describes people from all walks of life who are just living their lives and then have to figure out how to live now that everything has suddenly changed.  The pages of this book are charged with superstition and old-world magic; with the unknown and unknowable.  This is an examination of contemporary society under the guise of a science fiction novel.

Lagoon is available now.