Staff Picks

 I discovered Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones long before J.K. Rowling created Harry Potter and often recommend it to fans of magical stories here at FCPL. This 1977 young adult novel is a classic that really stands up to the test of time.   Charmed Life has a peculiar setting -- witches and wizards are common place but magic is a heavily regulated trade.  Bad girl Gwendolen Chant is as nasty to her brother Cat as any mean girl today with spells and incantations to boot.   When the two orphans are sent to a castle with its own brother and sister pair, sparks really begin to fly.  

Charmed Life takes a turn from the typical fantasy when Gwendolen transports herself to an alternate universe and leaves a teen from our own world in her place. It’s all part of her sinister plot to seize even greater power at Cat’s expense.  This imaginative story blends science fiction, fantasy and sibling rivalry into a story that inspired the four book series Worlds of Chrestomanci. 

Alicia Cavitt

Information Specialist

Staff Picks

I don’t know if I watched the TV series first or read the books—I am of that vintage that it could have gone either way.  Anyway, it was a long time ago, but  I did read and enjoy all of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books and I watched Melissa Gilbert and Michael Landon every week on NBC.  I was fascinated by Wilder’s depiction of the hardships faced by the settlers on the frontier and their resourcefulness in overcoming them.  I haven’t re-read the books, nor have I read the continuing series written by her descendants, but the memory seems to have a “good night, John-Boy” feel to it.  (Played by Richard Thomas in The Walton’s television series on CBS, based on the book Spencer’s Mountain by Earl Hamner.)  

Stop the Train by Geraldine McCaughrean, is the same era, different feel.  Inspired by the history of Enid, Oklahoma during the Land Run of 1893, we see a new town being settled on the prairie.  The characters are more colorful than I remember the Wilders’ being.  For instance, there is a Mormon sign painter trying to barter his way to Salt Lake City by painting signs for the local businesses:  “Charlie Quex, Barber, ‘Thy hair is as a flock of wild goats, Song of Solomon 4:1,’” and a schoolteacher who arrived in town as a mail-order bride and whose bona fides are iffy.  There is plenty of adventure and lots of laughs, as well as love and heartbreak and head lice and ear trumpets.  It all ends well, and if you like this book the story continues in The Glorious Adventures of the Sunshine Queen.

Mary Kretsch
Information Specialist   

Staff Picks

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivery

Based loosely on a Russian folktale called the Snow Child or Snow Maiden, this story tells the bittersweet tale of an older couple who move to Alaska in the 1920s to work off the land. 

After losing their only child as an infant the subsequent grief takes a toll on their relationship.  During an early winter snow, the couple builds a snowman and dresses it as a young girl.  The next day when they wake up the snowman is gone.  Soon after, a mysterious girl appears and befriends the couple.  They are concerned for her welfare as she disappears into the woods after visiting them and despite gaining her trust, she refuses to stay with them.

Several other interesting characters are introduced and their relationships become intertwined in the story. 

Joan Dudzinski
Information Specialist