Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports

This book is an absolute "must-have" for your family's bookshelves. It covers everything from what to pack for games to how to balance athletics with your child's schoolwork and social obligations. Drawing from an extensive bibliograpy, Brooke de Lench has written an essential resource for mothers of athletes. De Lench also co-edits the on-line publication, MomsTeam.com--which also provides constructive and practical advice to moms.

Safe Area Gorazde

by Joe Sacco.

Note: I'm putting this in adult nonfiction rather than graphic novel because this is “graphic nonfiction,” so to speak, and graphic novel on LG is associated with younger readers, which would not be appropriate in this case.

In this work, Sacco brings to readers the story of the town of Gorazde, one of the so-called “safe areas” established by the United Nations during the war in Bosnia during the 1990s, in illustrations that are both gorgeous and grotesque. A war correspondent, Sacco made friends with and interviewed locals as well as the Muslim refugees who fled to the town from other “ethnically cleansed” communities. This work is a combination of the results of those interviews, his experience of daily life in Gorazde, and representations of other scenes based on external research. His drawings convey the harsh realities of a land destroyed and a people slaughtered, as well as hope as peace approached and arrived. The text lays out in clear language the history of the conflict, going back to World War II. Sacco brings home the impact of war on human beings in a format that entertains as it educates. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll rage, but you won't regret picking up this one. -- Inanna

"The Dance of the Dissident Daughter" by Sue Monk Kidd

When I came across this book sitting at the tech services workstation, the subtitle, “A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine,” intrigued me. After all, I'd been there, done that. Reading the book, I tried to be wowed, I really did. Then I tried to just like it. That didn't happen either. Though Kidd's story is certainly interesting and heartfelt, I didn't get any sense of passion from her. For instance, occasionally she talks about her anger in certain situations, but the emotion just doesn't convey to the reader. The writing, to me, was insipid; Kidd got her publishing start in writing “Christian motivation” books, and it shows. I don't mean that in a good way. There are memoirs out there covering this same ground that are so much more well written and more captivating. (Phyllis Curott's first book comes to mind.) I'd recommend that readers find one of those. -- Inanna