June 25, 2010 After Franklin, Tennessee, graphic novelist Scott Christian Sava accomplished his childhood dream of illustrating an issue of the Spider-Man comic, he set his sights on creating an epic fantasy narrative of his own. The result, The Dreamland Chronicles, is now one of the most popular web comics in existence, read daily by more than ten million readers worldwide. And that’s not even counting the audience for his books.
June 1, 2010 Youth Speaks Nashville gives teens the opportunity to learn and express themselves through spoken-word poetry. Some of its talented young poets will add their voices to Nashville Now: 2010 Spoken Word Census, a portrait of the city in poetry, prose, and song. The three-day series of events will take place at the Darkhorse Theater at 7:30 p.m. on June 3, 4, and 5.
May 31, 2010 It began as just another school essay, with a due date for a grade. The assignment: to choose a book that speaks to you—any book you wish—and write a letter to its author, explaining how the story sheds new light on your own life experiences. Siori Koerner’s letter to J.D. Salinger ultimately won its author, an eighth grader from Murfreesboro, top honors in this year’s Letters About Literature contest, a national program sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.
May 26, 2010 What if Sherlock Holmes had married? And what if that union had produced children, who produced more children, until there were two great-great-great-grandchildren who had inherited their famous ancestor’s detective skills? The siblings would star in a series of detective stories, of course. Welcome to The Sherlock Files by Nashvillian Tracy Barrett.
Edited by Roberta Herrin and Sheila Quinn Oliver
McFarland
355 pages
$75
Teachers, parents, librarians and others who regularly encourage children and youth to read and who would like to share more books about the Appalachian region have an extensive new resource available to them. … This comprehensive bibliography – volume 26 in McFarland’s “Contributions to Southern Appalachian Studies” series – is a guide to books written about or set in Appalachia from the 18th century to the present. Annotations for the titles include brief reviews, critical analyses of the works, and indication of appropriate grade levels. Entries are indexed by author/title/illustrator and by subject, and appendices include a listing of authors and titles by grade levels and a listing of counties in the Appalachian region as defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission.
—from the publisher
May 19, 2010 From the looks of the dust jacket, you might assume Turtle in Paradise tells a sand ‘n’ surf tale of a lucky young girl luxuriating in a beachside resort, perhaps in pursuit of a boy’s attention. Instead, Jennifer Holm’s wonderful new novel for middle-grade readers takes readers to Depression-era Key West, a place that looks to our heroine, eleven-year-old Turtle, like “a broken chair that’s been left out in the sun to rot.” Two-time Newbery winner Jennifer Holm appears at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on May 20 at 4 p.m.
