The Missouri River Regional Library's Missouri Book Challenge Team
If you are a hardcore zombie fan, this book is for you. Max Brooks wrote the popular World War Z, where the world had to fight off zombies to survive. He takes a fiction/nonfiction look on what to do to survive such attack and the other humans still hanging around. You learn how the living undead move and survive, the best way to fight depending on where you live, what the best weapon is to use and many more things.
The graphic novel series, Love & Rockets debuted thirty years ago and the stories are just as fresh today as they were back then. The stories are engaging, thrilling, sexy, fun and usually all at the same time. If you haven’t read any of these stories, highly recommend you do so soon.
Fall of Night is the fourteenth book in the Morganville Vampire series. This is the first book that takes place out of Morganville. Why? Morganville is ruled by vampires and no one leaves Morganville without permission from the vamps. Claire the main character of the story is has permission to leave and attend college at MIT. Claire will be working with a professor and former resident of Morganville to a machine that can slow down a vampires attack. Most of the main characters are back for a thrill ride that doesn’t stop until the last page.
Beautiful Creatures is an award winning teen book that has been made into a major motion picture. Lena Duchannes moves to the small town of Gatlin to live her uncle. Lena is special, she has powers and she is trying hard to control her powers. You see, Lena is 15 and when she becomes 16 she will be “claimed” for either the side of good or the side of bad. Ethan Wate is a
lifer in Gatlin and wants to do nothing else but to move far far way from his home town. Ethan has dreams every night of girl and when he meets Lena he realizes she is that girl. This is a love story which has good characters, fantasy and a cool library.
House of Mystery: Conception, is vol 7 of an 8 part series. I have not read any of the other graphic novels in the series, so the story was a little confusing. The series centers around a house and it’s different interior styles which throws the inhabitants into mysteries. Along with a main story and several side stories.
Do you want to stop eating meat? Read Apocalypse Cow and your meat eating days will be in the past. The setting starts out at a slaughter house outside of Great Britain. A cow dies and then comes back to life to attack the owner of the establishment. Without warning all the cows start attacking the humans. A special group of men are sent to take care of the problem. The only issue, a cow gets away starting and an epidemic of animals turning into zombies begins. This book could have been called, “Revenge of the Animals”, as the human population [Great Britain area] starts to head towards extinction.
Four of Maya Angelou’s greatest poems about woman and life are put into one book. Celebration is one her finest gifts.
Maya Angelou is one of the world’s greatest poets. Brave and Startling Truth is one of her most inspiring books of poetry. Highly recommended.
Jeff Smith is the award winning author of BONE. In the RASL series he takes a dramatically different turn with a high-paced, adrenaline flowing mystery. Our hero is an art thief who travels different dimensions to steal art, when he stumbles across a mystery. The mystery has others following him through the dimensions trying find his secrets, putting himself and everyone else in peril. Using the works of Tesla and other scientist the mystery starts to unravel.
RASL Romance at the Speed of Light is volume three of the series about an art thief who jumps from one dimension to another to find a big score. In each dimension he sets up a new life with people he new from the other dimensions but of course, do not know him. He is being pursued by lizard looking man who believes this younger man processes the scientific journals of Telsa.
RASL The Fire of St George is the second book in series of a genius art thief who use technology to jump from dimension to dimension to steal art and set up different lives. A lizard looking spy is chasing the young thief believing he knows more about the technology then he lets on. He is also kills the girlfriends of the art thief in each dimension. The story is fast paced and very satisfying.
The Avengers are disbanded after Scarlet Witch has a break down and three members are killed. Taking advantage of the situation, a long standing villain disrupts the electrical systems of a maximum security island prison setting loose some of the worse criminals ever. Captain American must assemble a new group of avengers including the likes of Spider-Man & Wolverine to save the world.
World War Z is the first hand account of those around the world who survived the near extinction of the Zombie War. Max Brooks travels the world to interview men, women and children to document this historical event. The book is chilling and makes you think of present times. My favorite part is when a man commented on how whales got the worst of it when the plague broke out.
RASL,The Lost Journals of Nikola Tesla, is the fourth volume of the stories of Rasl. He is a thief and ex- military engineer and in this version, he discovers the lost journals of Nikola Tesla. Using Tesla’s notes and physics he discovers a breakthrough at unbearable price.
The Prophet 1, Remission is the rebooting of Earth after many years of alien influence. Our hero, John Prophet awakens from cybersleep with a mission of restarting Earth, so it may start the journey back to glory.
Deborah Digges was born and raised in Missouri her last book of poetry was published after death in 2009. Her poems are breathtaking and hit the heart hard.
Poet Marilyn Nelson has written an emotional tribute to Emmett Till, a fourteen year old boy who was lynched in 1955 for supposedly whistling at a white women in Mississippi.
Francesca Lia Block has written a three part poetry celebrating women.
Ann Turner has written a poetic narrative about a summer in her childhood. This touching & horrifying look at a summer filled with terror not joy, as Ann is molested by an older boy in the neighborhood. Fear of being hurt by the boy she kept her secret until her mother got it out of her. Not only did Ann have to learn to swim that summer, she had to learn to trust again.
Ann Turner has written a Teen poetry book about first love. The poems are like a diary as they follow a young girl as she meets a boy, starts dating him, falls in love and of course, has heart wrenching breakup.
