What's Simmering?

The third annual Fox Cities Book Festival will take place April 11-18, 2010 with events at more than 15 venues throughout the Fox Cities. Visit www.foxcitiesbookfestival.org to learn more about the festival, browse the impressive list of authors participating in the event, and view the schedule. Find the events you want to attend and use InfoSoup to request book festival titles now!

Don't miss future updates on the Fox Cities Book Festival. You can sign up for email updates, subscribe to the RSS feed, become a fan of the festival on Facebook or follow the festival on Twitter (@FCBookFestival).

We hope you will come out to meet fellow Fox Cities readers and connect with your favorite writers at the 2010 Fox Cities Book Festival.

Lesley Kagen's Whistling in the Dark has been named the 2010 Fox Cities Reads' book selection.

This year’s Community Read is once again a collaboration between the public libraries of Appleton, Neenah, Menasha, Kimberly, Little Chute and Kaukauna, as well as UW-Fox Valley and the Appleton Area School District.

This year the focus is on Wisconsin-based author Lesley Kagen and her New York Times best-selling novel Whistling in the Dark. We hope you enjoy this choice, which takes place in Milwaukee in the late 1950s. In this mystery story, Sally O’Malley is a feisty heroine who will tug at your heartstrings and make you laugh.

from http://www.foxcitiesreads.org/

Please see Appleton Public Library News for additional information.

Every January the American Library Association announces their top honors for excellence in children's and young adult literature, including the winners of the prestigious Caldecott and Newbery Medals. Check out our 2010 ALA Book Awards list to see some of the many excellent titles honored this year.

2010 Caldecott Medal winner

The Lion & the Mouse, illustrated and written by Jerry Pinkney.

The screech of an owl, the squeak of a mouse and the roar of a lion transport readers to the Serengeti plains for this virtually wordless retelling of Aesop’s classic fable. In glowing colors, Pinkney’s textured watercolor illustrations masterfully portray the relationship between two very unlikely friends. © Copyright 1997-2009 American Library Association.

2010 Newbery Medal winner

When you Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead.

Twelve-year-old Miranda encounters shifting friendships, a sudden punch, a strange homeless man and mysterious notes that hint at knowledge of the future. These and other seemingly random events converge in a brilliantly constructed plot. © Copyright 1997-2009 American Library Association.

Wisconsin has almost 15,000 military kids, and they live in every county of the state. Because they are geographically dispersed, these children often feel isolated. They feel that their peers do not understand what it is like to have a parent who is serving in another county. They worry about the safety of their parent, and the extensive media coverage of military operations creates daily anxiety. Operation Military Kids recently donated 20 books relating to the issues surrounding military deployment to area public libraries. The intent of this collection of books is to provide resources for families and children experiencing deployment and to build understanding about deployment and its affect on children among community members.

View Operation Military Kids Reading Collection.

A copy of the WI OMK Reading Collection with additional descriptions is available to download as a word document from the UW Cooperative Extension.

Mango Languages has launched a new service, Mango Basic, which is "designed to teach users simple, practical, and polite conversation skills in a foreign language."  Mango Basic is ideal for the short term traveler or curious student.  While limited in scope, it is available in languages not covered in Mango Complete, including Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, Hindi, Irish, Korean, Turkish, and Vietnamese.  Also available in Mango Basic are additional languages for teaching basic words and phrases in English.  To use either Mango version, just go to our Mango Languages page and click on Start Using Mango Languages.  From outside the library you will need a valid library card number and PIN.

Agreeing with the adage that "a picture is worth a thousand words," the Campaign for Wisconsin Libraries has created a visual way to remind people of the variety and wealth of resources, services, programs, and activities provided by their libraries. Wisconsin Libraries Say Cheese! A Day in Pictures is a project that shares digital photos taken in libraries during the week of Nov. 1-8.  See if you can find photos from your favorite InfoSoup library.

Celebrate Teen Read Week Oct. 18-23 and read something out of this world! For some great suggestions, take a look at our Teen Book Review Blog Science Fiction and Fantasy reviews. If you have read anything out of this world, or just really good, add your review to the blog.

Also check out the Out of This World booklist for more suggestions.

Please take a look at the latest addition to InfoSoup, the InfoSoup Memory Project.  This project provides a powerful online platform for presenting local history material from InfoSoup libraries. The project is just getting started, but we are excited by the possibilities for making available some of the unique local history materials in our libraries.

If you are interested in local history, you may also want to take a look at Digital Collections @ Your Library and Local History @ Your Library, a collection of links and information about a variety of online and in print local history resources.

Another exciting new addition to BadgerLink this year is Consumer Health Complete.

CHC provides content covering all areas of health and wellness from mainstream medicine to the many perspectives of complementary, holistic and integrated medicine. This full-text database covers topics such as aging, cancer, diabetes, drugs & alcohol, fitness, nutrition & dietetics, children's health, men & women's health, etc.

Consumer Health Complete includes information from hundreds of well known medical reference books, thousands of evidence-based health reports, generic and brand name drug patient education sheets, physician-generated videos, and much more.  This resource can be found on InfoSoup Research Tools Page. From outside an InfoSoup library you will need to enter your library card and pin to access this resource.

The Auto Repair Reference Center provides information on most major manufacturers of domestic and imported vehicles, with repair information for most vintage makes starting as far back as 1945. Content includes:

• Nearly 800,000 Drawings and Step-by-Step Photographs
• Approximately 83,200 Technical Services Bulletins & Recalls
• Over 99,800 Wiring Diagrams
• Labor Time Guide & Estimator
• Specifications & Maintenance Schedules

The Auto Repair Reference Center is made available through BadgerLink! BadgerLink provides access to full text magazines, newspapers and reference resources, literature, and other information. The services are provided by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction with funding through the Public Service Commission, Universal Service Fund.

This resource and many more can be found on InfoSoup Research Tools Page. From outside an InfoSoup library you will need to enter your library card and pin to access this resource.