Lunch Lady Madness!

Hey, guys, its summertime and the living is fun! School is out, the theme parks and swimming pools are open, camps are underway and there are sports to watch and sports to play. (and don't forget the library's Summer Reading Program!) In the spirit of fun, I'm going to tell you about some graphic novels, which, as all  guys know, are fun reading!

I recently had a great time reading four of the Lunch Lady graphic novels by the fabulous Jarrett Krosoczka. These gn's have been around for about five years and have been favorites for me and other reader guys. (if you want to see what we've said about them, check out the reviews here and here and here. I told you guys like them!) For those who don't know, Lunch Lady and her assistant Betty are not only school cafeteria workers but also super crime fighters, taking down bad guys with karate kicks, fish stick nunchuks and ketchup-packet lasers.Take a look, guys:

Lunch Lady and the Author Visit Vendetta

 Mr. Scribson, famous author of the Flippy Bunny books, is coming to the school! but everywhere he goes, gym teachers disappear. Coincidence? Lunch Lady doesn't think so!




 Lunch Lady and the Bake Sale Bandit

The school is having a bake sale to raise money for the school trip. But all the treats disappear during a blackout. Lunch Lady must investigate--and serve lunch with soggy taco shells!



Lunch Lady and the Video Game Villain

 All the electronic gadgets are disappearing and the school bully is running for student council president. Lunch Lady must get to the bottom of things--but what she finds will shock her!



Lunch Lady and the Schoolwide Scuffle

The evil school superintendent, Dr. Van Grindheimer, has fired Lunch Lady! Some nefarious plot is underway but Lunch lady just sits at home and eats junk food. Can anyone arouse her to action before it's too late?

These are good, quick and fun reads. There's enough action, mystery and campy humor to satisfy any guy! And these are only four--there are TEN in all. And the Charlotte Mecklenburg library system has them all!  So don't just sit around--get your spork phone, call your friends and check out the Lunch Lady graphic novels. Good gravy, they're a lot of fun!

PS--be sure to check out the Lunch Lady website!

Black Diamond, Heart of a Samurai and Summer Reading

Hey, guys, I've recovered now from my exertions from the 48 Hour Book Challenge and am now, of course, crowned with honor for my MANLY achievements over the weekend. Actually, I finished two really good books then and would like to tell you about them.

The first was Black Diamond: The Story of the Negro Baseball Leagues by Patricia C. McKissack and
Frederick McKissack, Jr. and was quite a good read. Baseball is an iconic, even mythic, American sport and the people who played it, especially in the old days, were larger than life. That's why books on the old days of baseball are so much fun to read. So I enjoyed this one and reading about fascinating people I'd never heard of and learning new things about famous players I thought I knew everything about. Baseball goes back a long time(some of George Washington's troops played a version of it) and was so popular after the Civil War that it organized into professional leagues. Of course, racial prejudice was strong back then too. A few African-American players got in and even earned some respect but the haters were too strong and there were too many of them, so African-Americans were barred from professional leagues. With all the resilience of oppressed peoples everywhere, however, they formed their own leagues and even held their own World Series. And they had some incredible players! Get this book and you'll read about James Thomas "Cool Papa" Bell, "the fastest runner who ever stole a base", Walter "Stretching Buck" Leonard who "posed a threat every time he approached a plate" and you'll also get the inspiring story of Jackie Robinson, the sad story of Josh Gibson and the incredibly long and successful career of the amazing Satchel Paige. As I said, these guys were larger than life and this book does a good job telling their stories.

Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus. Wow, oh, wow, did I ever enjoy this one! Have you ever gotten so
caught up in a book that the rest of the world seems to disappear? That's exactly what happened to me as I read this one. And it's all based on a true story! In 1841, Manjiro, a Japanese boy, is on a fishing boat with other guys from his village when a storm drives them out to sea. they wreck on a lonely island, not much more than a piece of rock, and are at starvation's point when an American whaling boat rescues them. Now they can go back home, right? Wrong! Japan is closed off to the rest of the world and anyone who leaves can be imprisoned. So here he is, stuck on a ship full of "foreign barbarians" but he eventually learns their language and their ways and comes to like them. The captain likes him too and takes Manjiro home as a son. But can he ever be a part of this new land? Everyone is good to him in America (well, not quite everyone) and it really is a land of opportunity and freedom but he's still too different to fit in. He misses his family wants to go back to Japan but will he be imprisoned if he does? You've got to read this one to find out! This is a truly terrific book, one of the best I've read in a long time--maybe even the best book this year. It will pull you in and make you keep reading until the very final page. And just wait until you see how the true story ties in with the fictional one! I finished this book with a big smile.

Speaking of reading, did you know you could get cool stuff for reading this summer? You sure can by signing up for the Summer Reading Program with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. This year's theme is Fizz, Boom, Read and has a SCIENCE theme!That means there will be lots of cool programs going on at your local library, so go by there and find out. Of course, you could read anything you want this summer--fiction, graphic novels, nonfiction, biographies, magazines, whatever. You'll get great stuff for signing up and for reading 10 and 20 hours. You have until August 9 to do so but don't waste any time! Summer can go by quickly, so head on down to your local Charlotte Mecklenburg library and sign up for Fizz, Boom, Read!