Library Loot ~ April 3-9

The Midwife of Hope River ~ by Patricia Harman, 2012, fiction (West Virginia)

Patricia Harmon transports us to poverty stricken Appalachia during the Great Depression years of the 1930s and introduces us to a truly unforgettable heroine.  Patience Murphy, a midwife struggling against disease, poverty, and prejudice — and her own haunting past — is a strong and endearing character, as she courageously attempts to bring new light and life into an otherwise cruel world.

The Storyteller ~ by Jodi Picoult, 2013, fiction

Sage Singer is a baker.  She works through the night, preparing the day’s breads and pastries, trying to escape a reality of loneliness, bad memories, and the shadow of her mother’s death.  When Josef Weber, an elderly man in Sage’s grief support group, begins stopping by the bakery, they strike up an unlikely friendship.  Despite their differences, they see in each other the hidden scars that others can’t, and they become companions.  Everything changes on the day that Josef confesses a long-buried and shameful secret — one that nobody else in town would ever suspect — and asks Sage for an extraordinary favor.  If she says yes, she faces not only moral repercussions, but potentially legal ones as well.  With her own identity suddenly challenged, and the integrity of the closest friend she’s ever had clouded, Sage begins to question the assumptions and expectations she’s made about her life and her family.  When does a moral choice become a moral imperative?  And where does one draw the line between punishment and justice, forgiveness and mercy?

Origami ~ by Sally Henry, 2011, children's

Origami, from the Japanese for "folding paper," originated in Japan hundreds of years ago. The complex and intricate paper folds of this art form are beautiful and have helped develop understanding of math concepts as well. This books covers basic origami techniques and projects. With few supplies needed other than paper and imagination, this book will keep active, young readers fascinated for hours at a time.

Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War by Michael Isikoff, 2006

Hubris takes us behind the scenes at the White House, CIA, Pentagon, State Department, and Congress to show how George W. Bush came to invade Iraq — and how his administration struggled with the devastating fallout.  It connects the dots between Bush's expletive-laden outbursts at Saddam Hussein, the bitter battles between the CIA and the White House, the fights within the intelligence community over Saddam's supposed weapons of mass destruction, the outing of an undercover CIA officer, and the Bush administration's misleading sales campaign for war.

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire @ The Captive Reader and Marg @ The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages us to share titles of books we’ve checked out of the library.  Add your link any time during the week, and see what others got this week.