TitleTales

Native American Mysteries: by Rebecca Birkholz
(Supervisor - Cataloging Services)

Adult Special Topics—06/25/10
My college freshman Introduction to Anthropology class introduced me to Tony Hillerman’s mysteries when the professor assigned Skinwalkers, and I was hooked. Hillerman’s novels are set on the Navajo Reservation and feature the stories of Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and Sergeant Jim Chee. Following Tony Hillerman’s death in 2008, and realizing I wouldn’t be able to read any new books about these great characters, I started looking for read-alike titles. I discovered Margaret Coel and Aimee and David Thurlo.

Coel’s Wind River Mysteries feature Father John O’Malley and lawyer Vicky Holden as amateur sleuths on the Arapaho Nation in Wyoming. Together they investigate homicides and fight romantic tension between them. Tony Hillerman called her a master. Spider’s Web, Coel’s fifteenth book featuring O’Malley and Holden will be available in September 2010.

Aimee and David Thurlo write three different mystery series–Lee Nez, Sister Agatha, and Ella Clah. My favorite titles star Officer Clah, a former FBI agent in Los Angeles who returned to the Navajo Nation as the head of the Tribal Police Special Investigation team. Ella strives to “walk in beauty” (a Navajo philosophy of weighing life’s positive and negative forces harmoniously) while balancing her fast-paced job and modernist beliefs against those of her traditionalist mother and brother, a Navajo medicine man. Hillerman raves that, “Readers who like their murders solved by applied intelligence will love Ella Clah.” Investigator Clah’s new adventure Never-Ending Snake will be published in August 2010.

• Browse our Blog: Native American Mysteries list

A New Baby: Lori Fennel
(Librarian - Collection Development)

Juvenile & YA Special Topics—06/25/10
It seems like everywhere I turn I see another baby bump these days, just as there are continually new picture books on the subject of a new baby brother or sister. It’s certainly a big adjustment for any firstborn. I can sympathize with Oliver’s predicament in But I Wanted a Baby Brother! because I had my own strong opinions as a child as to which kind of baby our family should get, and, unlike for Oliver, for me the universe obeyed. In There’s Going to Be a Baby, husband and wife John Burningham and Helen Oxenbury finally join forces. Child’s Play has a series of four board books to help toddlers prepare: Waiting for Baby, Look At Me!, My New Baby and You and Me. Interestingly, the mom in Jacqueline Woodson’s upcoming picture book Pecan Pie Baby, seems to be happily expecting her second child with no husband or significant other in sight. But my favorite is Little Rabbit’s New Baby — imagine having to adjust to triplets!

• Browse our Blog: A New Baby list

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