Multnomah County Library Podcasts

Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd. 18-year-old Fergus runs high in the Irish hills to escape. His brother, an IRA sympathizer, is on a hunger strike in prison, and might die soon. Fergus needs to succeed in school to get to continue his studies. And now even his running is no escape, because he's been asked to be a courier for strange packets he suspects are drugs. When Fergus finds a bog mummy from the year AD 80 he's amazed at how her story parallels his own.

Facts of Life; Stories by Gary Soto. What do you do when you find out your new friend  is secretly robbing people's houses? What would you do if you found out you weren't a legal citizen - and your parents never told you? Ten short stories about Latino kids who all have to make an important choice. The decision is up to them!

Like the book The Outsiders? Check out Brothers Torres by Coert Voorhees. Right when Frankie gets up the nerve to ask Julianne to Homecoming, it all blows up with his older brother Steve, who's been staying out all night with local Cholos and picking fights in their small New Mexican town.

Hey Kids!  Listen to an interview with Amy Sachs of the Pixie Project, and learn all about adopting and taking care of cats and dogs.  Then check out these great books on cats and dogs, which you can find at the Multnomah County Library:

Shelter Dogs

The Bravest Cat

Everything cat : what kids really want to know about cats

Everything dog : what kids really want to know about dogs

How to talk to your cat

How to talk to your dog

In March 1955, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on a mostly white bus...months before Rosa Parks made the news for doing the same thing.

Return to Sender by Julia Alvarez. After his family hires migrant Mexican workers to help save their Vermont farm from foreclosure, eleven-year-old Tyler befriends the oldest daughter, but when he discovers they may not be in the country legally, he realizes that real friendship knows no borders.

Masterpiece by Elise Broach. After Marvin, a beetle, makes a miniature drawing as an eleventh birthday gift for James, a human with whom he shares a house, the two new friends work together to help recover a Durer drawing stolen from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Mostly True Adventures of Homer P Figg by Rodman Philbrick. Twelve-year-old Homer, a poor but clever orphan, has extraordinary adventures after running away from his evil uncle to rescue his brother, who has been sold into service in the Civil War.

Groan! Fall's here and it's back to school. But in your spare time, check out these books about book crafts: things involved with writing, making and publishing your own books. Books reviewed include:

Indie Publishing; How to Design and Produce your Own Book ed. by Ellen Lupton

In Print! 40 Cool Publishing Projects for Kids by Joe Rhatigan

Cool Calligraphy by Anders Hanson

Making Books that Fly, Fold, Wrap, Hide, Pop Up, Twist and Turn by Gwen Diehn

T-shirt reconstruction is the new knitting!  Listen to some great book and online resources for turning your t-shirts into fabulous things to wear, including T-Shirt Makeovers, Generation T, Tease, and threadbanger.com. 

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. Todd Hewitt has spent his life listening to the Noise -- the thoughts of every living thing on the New World. But it's the day he hears nothing that changes everything.

 

Heck Where the Bad Kids Go by Dale E. Basye. Everybody screws up a little right? You might not end up in H - E- double hockey stick, but would you still screw up if you knew you'd end up in Heck?

Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People, by Dav Pilkey. George and Harold break all the rules by using the time machine two days in a row - which catapults them into an alternative universe.

The Boy Who Dared, by Susan Bartoletti. A thrilling adventure of a 17-year-old boy, who dared to oppose the Nazis.