(DLA Las Piñas HS LRC) January Book of the Month - Sisterland

From Shakespeare’s “Comedy of Errors” to “The Parent Trap” and beyond, twins have provided rich fodder for our stories. Mistaken identity makes for great farce, and, paradoxically, identical twinship provides a way to examine what makes us different. Curtis Sittenfeld, New York Times bestselling author of American Wife and Prep, tears apart contemporary American family life one microscopic fiber at a time as she returns with a mesmerizing story of family and identity, loyalty and deception, and the delicate line between truth and belief.

"Sisterland" is the nameplate on the door of the childhood bedroom inhabited by identical twin sisters Violet and Kate. As they grow up in St Louis, they slowly realize that they were both born with peculiar "senses" unlike everyone else – the psychic gift of seeing into the future.

Or maybe that's not really what it is exactly, it's more of an intuition about people and places and things that may be about to happen. Though Vi embraced her visions, Kate did her best to hide them after a traumatic teenage sleepover.

The story is mainly told from Kate's perspective and like Prep, much of this book is devoted to girls’ adolescence. Although this isn't a thriller, it is a work of psychological genius and has a wonderful twist at the end.

It is a literary page-turner masquerading as a feud between two sisters. In reality, it's about the politics of marital life and the difficulty of out-running your own childhood. It has all the best qualities of Tom Perrotta's Little Children and all the fine, up-close detail of Ann Patchett's work. Funny, haunting, and thought-provoking, Sisterland is a beautifully written novel of the obligation we have toward others, and the responsibility we take for ourselves.

(DLA Las Piñas GS LRC) March Book of the Month - Ice Planet Adventure

The cosmically fun spin-off series, Spacemice, features somewhat accident-prone spacemouse Geronimo Stiltonix meeting outer space on exciting intergalactic missions as the captain of the fabumouse spaceship MouseStar 1 with his equally if not more adventurous family!

On the latest adventure of the spacemice (published just last month), their friends have disappeared on a strange ice planet called Polarix! Stiltonix and his crew land their space pod on the planet and they surprisingly find it inhabited by cute aliens, pluffs, that look like colorful puffy fuzz balls. But the spacemice will have to be careful -- are these creatures as harmless as they look?

Ice Planet Adventure would be great for journeying to breathtaking worlds and if you're up for some edge-of-your-seat reading. Why not get started on your science-fiction reading with this wonderful new series straight from the addictive Geronimo Stilton books?

The LRC is currently set on collecting more of the spacemice books and have recently acquired the following so go check them out whenever you can:

• #1: Alien Escape
• #2: You're Mine, Captain!
• #3: Ice Planet Adventure

Is there another book you want the library to feature next time? Or would you like the library to have a copy of this book you've now been eyeing for months at the bookstore? Ask all the questions that's been itching at you whenever you see one of the librarians or staff present in the library, we'll be more than glad to help you! :)

(DLA Las Piñas HS LRC) January Author of the Month - Jesse Andrews

Jesse Andrews was born in September 15, 1982. He is an author, screenwriter, and former German youth hostel receptionist. Jesse was born and raised in Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Schenley High School and Harvard University. His debut novel, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl written from the perspective of Greg Gaines (an awkward high school senior who is not part of any social group and with practically no ‘friends’), was published by Harry Abrams in 2012 and won that year's Cybils Award for Young Adult Fiction.

It had the misfortune to be published at roughly the same time as that other teens-with-cancer juggernaut, leading some to believe that Andrews' work, "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl," was a reaction or corrective.

Before the success of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Jesse was floundering. After graduating from Harvard, he spent his twenties bouncing around dead-end jobs and writing two unpublished novels which he deems “huge failures.”

Then a college friend who worked in publishing suggested a change in direction—why didn’t he write a young adult novel? Writing Me and Earl and the Dying Girl introduced Jesse to the conventions of screenwriting, since the novel’s film-obsessed narrator renders many of his encounters as scripts. Thanks to that conceit, producer Dan Fogelman ended up suggesting that Andrews adapt the script himself—and offered to walk him through the process.

The movie premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival to a standing ovation, winning both the Audience Award (U.S. - Dramatic) and the Grand Jury Prize (U.S. - Dramatic). The film was released on June 12, 2015 worldwide and has received positive reviews from critics. Entertainment Weekly has exclusively announced what's next for Jesse which are two new novels with The Haters as the first and will be published by Amulet Books in April 2016.

The book follows a trio of pals who have escaped from jazz camp to head out on the road, as all up-and-coming bands must. The book is also grounded in something deeply familiar: Jesse’s own experience in a road-traveling band. Jesse currently lives in Massachusetts. Still curious? Check out Jo's entry on her amusing chat with the writer or stalk him at his website.

(DLA Las Piñas GS LRC) January Author of the Month - Lincoln Peirce

Lincoln Peirce (pronounced "purse") was born on October 23, 1963 (age 52) in Iowa. He is a cartoonist, writer, and illustrator best known as the creator of the syndicated comic strip called Big Nate which debuted in 1991 and appears in 300 newspapers in the U.S. It also appears online daily at comics.com, GoComics, and Poptropica. Jeff Kinney explains that he was inspired by the Big Nate comic strips to create Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Lincoln grew up in New Hampshire where he attended high school then attended college in Maine where he created a weekly comic strip called "Third Floor" for the school newspaper.

According to the Big Nate website, Lincoln is not related anyhow to the president Franklin Pierce as he was once mistaken for.

He later earned a graduate degree from a different college and also studied at The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He taught art and coached baseball at a boys' high school in New York City for three years before moving to Maine in 1992 and started writing. In addition to Big Nate, Lincoln has written several animated shorts for Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon.

He also gives lectures to students about cartoon creating. Lincoln's New York Times bestselling novels have been featured on Good Morning America and in the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post. He currently lives with his wife and two children in Portland, Maine. You can check out Scott Nickel's fascinating 20 questions with him on his blog.