Crossover  

Crossover, the KFL's first intergenerational book group, is dedicated to exploring crossover fiction:  adult novels with teen appeal and teen novels with adult appeal.  It is held on the third Monday of the month at 6:00pm.  In the case of Monday holidays, Crossover is held on the second Monday of the month.  While we do welcome all ages, please note that the books are geared towards an older teen to adult audience. Copies of the books are available at the front desk -- call us at 985.2173 to reserve one today!

Upcoming Discussions • Previous Discussions & Related Reading

Upcoming discussions: 2010: February 8:  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie March 15:  Midnight at the Dragon Cafe, by Judy Fong Bates April 12:  Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork May 17: What Was Lost, by Catherine Flynn June 21: Bog Child, by Siobhan Dowd July 19: The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde August 16:  Paper Towns, by John Green September 20:  Pretty Birds, by Scott Simon October 18:  Liar, by Justine Larbalestier

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie 2007 National Book Award From the book jacket: In his first book for young adults, bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by acclaimed artist Ellen Forney, that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live.
Midnight at the Dragon Cafe, by Judy Fong Bates 2006 Alex Award From the book jacket: Set in the 1960s, Judy Fong Bates’s much-talked-about debut novel is the story of a young girl, the daughter of a small Ontario town’s solitary Chinese family, whose life is changed over the course of one summer when she learns the burden of secrets. Through Su-Jen’s eyes, the hard life behind the scenes at the Dragon Café unfolds. As Su-Jen’s father works continually for a better future, her mother, a beautiful but embittered woman, settles uneasily into their new life. Su-Jen feels the weight of her mother’s unhappiness as Su-Jen’s life takes her outside the restaurant and far from the customs of the traditional past. When Su-Jen’s half-brother arrives, smouldering under the responsibilities he must bear as the dutiful Chinese son, he forms an alliance with Su-Jen’s mother, one that will have devastating consequences. Written in spare, intimate prose, Midnight at the Dragon Café is a vivid portrait of a childhood divided by two cultures and touched by unfulfilled longings and unspoken secrets.
Previous Discussions & Related Reading: October 19:  The Book of Lost Things, by John Connolly                     Blog entry about related reading. November 16:  What I Saw and How I Lied, by Judy Blundell                  Blog entry about related reading. January 11:  We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson
The Book of Lost Things, by John Connolly 2007 Alex Award From the book jacket: High in his attic bedroom, 12-year-old David mourns the death of his mother. He is angry and alone, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness, and as he takes refuge in his imagination, he finds that reality and fantasy have begun to meld. While his family falls apart around him, David is violently propelled into a land that is a strange reflection of his own world, populated by heroes and monsters, and ruled over by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a mysterious book… The Book of Lost Things. An imaginative tribute to the journey we must all make through the loss of innocence into adulthood, John Connolly's latest novel is a book for every adult who can recall the moment when childhood began to fade, and for every adult about to face that moment. The Book of Lost Things is a story of hope for all who have lost, and for all who have yet to lose. It is an exhilarating tale that reminds us of the enduring power of stories in our lives.
What I Saw and How I Lied, by Judy Blundell 2008 National Book Award From the book jacket: When Evie's father returned home from WWII, the family fell back into its normal life pretty quickly. But Joe Spooner brought more back with him than just good war stories. When movie-star handsome Peter Coleridge, a young ex-GI who served in Joe's company in postwar Austria, shows up, Evie is suddenly caught in a complicated web of lies that she only slowly recognizes. She finds herself falling for Peter, ignoring the secrets that surround him . . . until a tragedy occurs that shatters her family and breaks her life in two. As she begins to realize that almost everything she believed to be a truth was really a lie, Evie must get to the heart of the deceptions and choose between her loyalty to her parents and her feelings for the man she loves. Someone will have to be betrayed. The question is . . . who?
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson Book Magazine's Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900: Mary Katherine Blackwood, #71 From the book: My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.