Umberland

Spinale, Wendy. Umberland. Book 2 of the Everland series. 2017. 275p. ISBN 978-0-545-95318-4. Available as an audiobook on Overdrive.

In Everland, Gwen and her siblings escaped the heart of London and the Bloody German Queen’s Marauders with Pete and the Lost Boys and found safe haven at Alnwick Castle, where the Queen of England still rules. Unfortunately, the Queen is dying, and the Horologia virus that affects the remaining children is mutating following Doc’s intervention to create a vaccine. Duchess Alyssa is ready to take over the leadership, but Kat opposes this move and plans a revolution of her own. With time running out, Doc can think of only one possibility to stop the virus. Someone must travel to the Black Forest to retrieve a poisonous apple believed to be extinct. Protected by a deadly maze and located deep within enemy territory, the hopes of even finding this apple are slim to none.

Alyssa travels to the Queen’s garden, where she meets Maddox Hadder, a transfuge from Germany. Maddox agrees to help her, and the two of them travel to Germany and enter the maze. Hook, meanwhile, has returned to meet with his mother the Bloody Queen, and she tasks him and his half brother to enter the same labyrinth and find the apple so that Germany can possess an antidote to the virus. Gwen and Peter, meanwhile, face an assault by Kat and her forces. As the three pairs travel their separate ways, the virus spreads even further and a life-threatening situation turns deadly as obstacles litter their journey. Are they willing to pay the cost?

The Truth Behind Factory Foods

Quinlan, Julia J. and Paula Johanson. The Truth Behind Factory Foods. Part of the From Factory to Table: What You’re Really Eating series. 2018. 48p. ISBN 978-1-49943925-0. Available at 641.2 QUI on the library shelves.

Most of the food we now eat comes pre-packaged and is purchased at the grocery store, or is purchased in bulk and prepared at a fast-food restaurant. Packages and menus are well designed, pictures are attractive, and food names are descriptive. What we are eating, however, is not clear as even the nutritional label can be very confusing, with multiple ingredients sporting names like propylene glycol and silicon dioxide, whose functions and properties are unknown to the general public.

Such foods, which are cheap and easily accessed and consumed, are made by industrial conglomerates who make millions of portions using the cheapest ingredients they can find, and fill them with preservatives to keep them on shelves longer, and with chemicals to render them visually attractive as well as tasty. These processing foods are not as nutritious as homemade meals, and can contain high amounts of sugars and sodium, which in turn affects the health of those who consume them.

Providing a great overview of the processed food industry, this book clearly demonstrates that not all foods are created equal, and that those buying food must be aware of what they purchase both for health and for environmental reasons.

Other books in this series include:

• The Truth Behind Manufactured Foods
• The Truth Behind GMOs
• The Truth Behind Soft Drinks
• The Truth Behind Antibiotics, Pesticides, and Hormones
• The Truth Behind Snack Foods

Noragami: Stray God, Vol. 10

Adachitoka. Noragami: Stray God, Vol. 10. 2016. 177p. ISBN 978-1-63236-213-1. Available in the Graphic Section of the library.

In Noragami: Stray God, Vol 9, Yato and his stray entered the underworld to help Ebisu, and he became trapped when Izanami refused to release him. Hiyori and Yukiné want to rescue him, but all efforts at entering the underworld fail. Despite her misgivings about Yato, Bishamon volunteers to retrieve him. But once in the underworld, she is forced to fight Izanami and realizes that Izanami is more powerful than she expected.

Hiyori is approached by a spirit that reveals that the only way bring Yato back from the underworld is to recall him using his real name. Searching her memory, she's able to discover it and manages to bring Yato back, and they are finally reunited. Yato is saddened, however, when a young new Ebisu is introduced to him. Yato takes it onto him to apologize to Ebisu for causing the death of his predecessor. Meanwhile, the crafter, the man in possession of a brush called the Word of Yomi, which can be used to craft Ayakashi, remains at large...

The story continues in Noragami: Stray God, Vol. 10.

Seeker

Rossi, Veronica. Seeker. Book 2 of the Riders series. 2017. 352p. 620 mins. ISBN 978-1-42728735-9. Available as an audiobook on Overdrive.

In Riders, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse worked with their seeker, Daryn, to prevent Samrael and his demons from the Kindred from taking over the world by opening a portal. Unfortunately, Sebastian, one of the horsemen, was dragged by Samuel through a dark dimension that Daryn opened and then sealed. Now eight months have passed, and Daryn has disappeared, plagued with the guilt of what happened to Sebastian and with the lost of her Sight.

Gideon, Marcus and Jod have been looking for Daryn since her disappearance after the epic confrontation with the Kindred. Working closely with a secret government entity, they hope to re-open the dimension and retrieve Sebastian from the clutches of Samrael. But Daryn is essential for their purpose and she must be found. Finally tracked to Wyoming the night that Daryn attempts to infiltrate the dimension by herself, the team reunites and develops a plan. An entire team of special forces will follow the three horsemen and Daryn in, retrieve Sebastian, and seal the dimension forever.

Unfortunately the plan goes awry. Some of the soldiers are killed, and many are wounded. Unable to successfully bring their mission to completion, the head of the operation cancels any other attempt. It is now up to Daryn, Gideon, and their friends to rescue Sebastian before it is too late.

Told in alternating chapters from Daryn and Gideon’s point of view, their attempts to bring Sebastian back is filled with tension and action. A page-turner, Seeker provides a satisfying conclusion to this duology.

The Islamic Caliphate

DeCarlo, Carolyn. The Islamic Caliphate. Part of the Empires in the Middle Ages series. 2018. 48p. ISBN 978-1-68048-783-1. Available at 909.09 ISL on the library shelves.

Following the death of Muhammad, his closest allies created the Caliphate to settle who would lead Islam. Established both as a successor to the prophet and as his deputy, the Caliph was nominally in charge of both the political and religious side of Islam. Created in 632 CE, the Caliphate survived for over 600 years, until Mongol invasions sacked Baghdad and destroyed its remnants.

Over the course of centuries, the Caliphate evolved through four distinct phases. The Rightly Guided Caliphate transformed from a relatively remote, Arab-dominated religion to a vast Empire stretching from North Africa to India, and incorporating numerous prosperous cultures into a coherent Muslim civilization. The Umayyad Caliphate seized power away from members of Muhammad’s immediate family and expanded the borders of the Empire. Unfortunately, tribal rivalries and military conflicts with the Byzantine Empire forced another transfer of power. The Abbasid Caliphate led to a cultural boom and the growth of scholarship, as well as an improvement in administration, and is often considered the golden age of the Caliphate. Finally, the Fatimid Caliphate, first arising as a rival Caliphate to the Abbasid, eventually absorbed territories.

With crusaders coming from the West and Turks and Mongols pushing in from the East, the Caliphate was squeezed on all sides and was eventually defeated in 1258. The newly formed Ottoman Empire briefly revived the office of Caliph, to assert their claim of leadership over the Islamic world, but it soon lapsed again. The name Caliphate continues to enflamme passions. More recently, ISIS instaured a Caliphate over the areas it controlled in Syria and Iraq, but was ultimately defeated by the United States and its allies.

Titles in the Empires in the Middle Ages series include:

• The Byzantine Empire
• The Crusades
• The Holy Roman Empire
• The Mongol Empire
• The Ottoman Empire

Love and First Sight

SundQuist, Josh. Love and First Sight. 2017. 281p. 382 mins. ISBN 9780316305358. Available as an audiobook on Overdrive.

Will Porter is excited about starting his junior year in high school. This is the first time he will be attending a public high school. He has spent his entire school career away from home, at a school for blind students. Will is completely blind. He has never seen colors, movies, or his own face. Being blind from birth means he can’t even imagine what darkness looks like, because he has no contrast to draw on. Wishing to gain independence, Will made the decision to step away from the comfortable environment he went to, and now looks forward to typical high school experiences.

His first day starts on the wrong foot when he accidentally gropes a girl while climbing stairs. Guided by the vice principal, who is uncomfortable with Will but attempts not to show it, Will locates all of his classrooms and memorizes the directions. In journalism, he makes a girl names Cecily cry because he was accidentally staring at her. His teacher informs the class that Will is blind, marking him as different. During lunch, Will finds what he thinks is an empty table but he ends up sitting on Nick.

Soon, however, Will becomes friends with a group of kids, including Cecily and Nick. As their relationship deepens, Will worries that having a girlfriend will undercut his independence. When his mother returns home one day with an incredible possibility, Will is torn. The hospital where his father works is conducting trials where stem cells are implanted in the eye along with new cornea, providing the blind the possibility to see for the first time. If Will accepts this opportunity, his entire life will change. He may never see very well, for his mind will not have a frame of reference for everything he sees. But he might see colors, shapes, and a general glimpse of the world. There is the danger that the operation could fail, however, leaving him blind again.

In a world dominated by the sighted, however, there is a lot of information that is visually acquired and that is never shared orally. What do his friends really look like? What visual signals do they send each other that Will cannot see? And is Cecily really as gorgeous as his fingers tell him she is? Being able to see will change his life, but it may not be as perfect as he imagined ...

A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919

Hartfield, Claire. A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919. 2018. 208p. ISBN 9781328699046. Available as an eBook on Overdrive.

On a sweltering July 27, 1919, five African-American teens left their Chicago tenements near the Union stockyard, and went to the 26th street beach on Lake Michigan. Racial tensions had been simmering in the city for years, but the United States’ entry in the First World War had triggered a labor shortage at the same time as a high demand for meat for troops, and the companies that ran the stockyard recruited heavily among new immigrant groups, and from African-Americans living in the South. Despite the hard living conditions in Chicago, life for African-Americans was generally better than in the South. The return of troops, however, meant that less jobs were available. Thus, race, class, and immigration issues were all intersecting in 1919, making Chicago a powder keg that a single match could easily ignite.

That match came in the form of Eugene Williams and his friends. The teens played in the warm waters, but they did not notice as their raft slowly drifted towards the White beach on 29th street. Though Chicago was not officially segregated, a division between Whites and Blacks had taken place. White beachgoers noticed the kids on what they considered their beach, and they threw rocks. One of them fatally struck Eugene, who did not know how to swim. His death by drowning triggered anger among African-American beachgoers, and this in turn fueled their resentment against the city and its other inhabitants.

Violence soon ensued, with gangs of immigrants chasing African-Americans, bombings rocking Black neighborhoods, and many people being injured and killed. With the city in full riot, thousand of police officers and state militia intervened, but since they mainly protected White neighborhoods, they only served to fuel the anger. Over the course of a week, 15 Whites and 23 African-American men were killed, while hundreds were injured and much property was destroyed. As the heat dissipated, the rioters’ energy also waned, but the anger would continue and eventually lead to the Civil Rights movement and African-American advocacy.

Fans of history will appreciate the details of this dark page and will enjoy explanations that can directly be related to social conditions today.