In this issue:

Kansas Center for the Book sponsors a state-wide read

UPCOMING WATERMARK EVENTS

January KMUW Literary Feast: this Friday, Jan. 5 at 7 p.m.

Jill Conner Browne - Sweet Potato Queens Event: Tue., Jan. 23 at 7 p.m.

February KMUW Literary Feast: Friday, Feb. 2 at 7 p.m.

WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE AWARD REMINDERS

Watermark can help you get your books

Ballots and tally sheets available soon

Watermark favorites from the current master lists:

* "The Penderwicks" by Jeanne Birdsall

* "Airball: My Life in Briefs" by L. D. Harkrader

* "Every Little Bird That Sings" by Deborah Wiles

BOOK REVIEWS

"Owen & Mzee: The Language of Friendship" by Isabella & Craig Hatkoff

"47" by Walter Mosley

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Greetings!

Is 2007 everything that you hoped it would be?

Youth book-wise, things are shaping up nicely: We’ve just received in an informative new sequel to the non-fiction children’s picture book "Owen & Mzee" (see below for a review); I’m currently relishing Kai Meyer’s breathless new middle-readers’ fantasy noel "The Stone Light" (follow-up to last year’s "The Water Mirror"); and there are several smashing young-reader graphic novels on the horizon from Scholastic and elsewhere. Look for more on them next time.

Probably needless to say, Watermark has laid in a stock of the book; let us know if you need a copy. Or twenty.

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UPCOMING EVENTS

KMUW Literary Feast: this Friday, January 5 at 7:00 p.m.

The January book is "The Inheritance of Loss" by Kiran Desai, the winner of the 2006 Man Booker Prize. Literary Feast participants will enjoy dinner together, with a menu specially created by our Watermark chef, then take part in a book discussion over dessert.

Tickets are available at the Watermark book counter or by calling (316) 682-1181. Places are limited, and we recommend purchasing your ticket well in advance. Read more about the book, author, and menu on the KMUW Web site

(A bit further ahead: the February Literary Feast will be held Friday, February 2 at 7:00 p.m., and the book will be the new novel "Against the Day" by Thomas Pynchon, author of "Gravity's Rainbow.")

Jill Conner Browne - Sweet Potato Queens Event: Tuesday, January 23 at 7:00 p.m.

Watermark is so happy to host the return of the Queen of the Sweet Potato Queens as she releases her first novel, titled "The Sweet Potato Queens' First Big-Ass Novel: Stuff We Didn't Actually Do, but Could Have, and May Yet." It will be an evening fit for queens as we convene at the Orpheum for a reading and book signing. Call up your girlfriends, break out your tiaras, and plan to make it a night-out to remember.

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WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE AWARD REMINDERS

Several of you have already been in to Watermark to get books from the current William Allen White Award nominees lists. For anyone still looking for titles, we’ve arranged all the books from the master lists together on one shelf to make your browsing easier. Also, if you’d like to fax or e-mail your list of desired titles to us, we can make up a bundle for you and have it waiting. And remember, teachers and educators receive a discount every day for classroom materials: just let us know at the check-out counter. Send a fax to (316) 682-1506 or shoot an e-mail to:

lisa.johnson@watermarkbooks.com

Several Watermark favorites have been nominated for this year’s award. Use the Web addresses below to read brief reviews on the Watermark Web site:

"Airball: My Life in Briefs" by L. D. Harkrader (currently only in

hardcover: Roaring Brook Press, 1596430605, $16.95):

"Each Little Bird That Sings" by Deborah Wiles (hardcover: Gulliver Books, 0152051139, $16.00; paperback: Harcourt Paperbacks, 0152056572, $5.95):

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BOOK REVIEWS

"Owen & Mzee: The Language of Friendship" told by Isabella & Craig Hatkoff and Dr. Paula Kahumbu, photographs by Peter Greste (Scholastic Press, 0439899591, $16.99)

Owen the baby hippo and Mzee the tortoise are back in this photograph-rich follow-up to last year’s much-loved non-fiction children’s picture book. First brought together after Owen was orphaned by the 2004 tsunami, the young hippopotamus and the 130-year-old Aldabra tortoise have remained constant companions ever since in their home at the Haller Park wildlife preserve in Mombasa, Kenya. This animal odd-couple have attracted great attention from people all over the world, and now, after two years together, they’re closer than ever.

In this second book, father and daughter Craig and Isabella Hatkoff return to Owen and Mzee’s story in order to tell about the curious methods of communication the two mismatched animals have developed. With nips and nudges, they direct each other around their enclosure; they use subtle signals to divvy up their food; and each has begun to make low rumbling noises that no one has previously witnessed being made by other hippos or tortoises. Owen and Mzee are two very unusual friends, and their wordless cross-species communication is a curious thing indeed. Even more interesting: when Mzee makes a lengthy stay in different enclosure while receiving veterinary treatment, Owen befriends another tortoise, named Toto, and Toto continues to hang with the two friends after Mzee comes back. It’s a ménage à tortoise! (Just a little innocent animal humor for you there, folks.)

"Owen & Mzee: The Language of Friendship" covers some of the same ground as the first book, but it also extends their story of animal camaraderie and includes even more additional information in its back pages, including maps of Kenya, descriptions of Haller Park, and details about the lives and habits of hippopotamuses and Aldabra tortoises. Youngsters taken with the earlier book will be delighted by this sequel.

Recommended for readers ages 4 to 8.

Read a review of the first "Owen & Mzee" book here:

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"47" by Walter Mosley (Little, Brown Young Readers, 0316016357, $7.99)

African-American novelist Walter Mosley is probably best known for his bestselling adult crime fiction, especially his Easy Rawlins detective series set in the Watts neighborhood of southern Los Angeles. But in this unique teen novel, Mosley’s first and now new in paperback, he takes a very different turn, blending together American history, African legend, and imaginative science fiction elements to tell an engrossing story of hope and self-liberation.

The setting is a Georgia cotton plantation in 1832, and the main character is an orphan boy known to everyone only as slave number Forty-seven. He’s at the age where he’s no longer considered a child but rather a young man, and so he must take his place in the men’s barracks and go to work in the fields. Forty-seven takes the changes hard and misses his surrogate mother terribly until he meets a strange visitor who calls himself Tall John.

Tall John is a total mystery. He seems to be a runaway slave, but he claims to have sailed from a place beyond Africa in a ship moved by sunlight. While captivating and confusing everyone on the plantation with his contraband stories of freedom and self-reliance, John reveals to Forty-seven many wondrous tools and high-tech tricks that look almost like magic. He tells the young boy that he has arrived to help him fulfill his destiny as a hero who will fight a great battle to save Tall John’s alien people and eventually help to lead his fellow slaves into the promised land of freedom.

With these instantly intriguing characters and an always-captivating plot, Mosley turns the book’s direction from historical fiction towards a wholly unique blend of legend and science fiction. Forty-seven slowly begins to believe in his own future and in Tall John’s stories of the trickster figure High John the Conqueror, and so he comes to choose for himself the destiny he most wishes to pursue.

While it follows in the classic fantasy tradition of Madeleine L'Engle’s "A Wrinkle in Time" and of the thoughtful adventure stories of Ursula K. Le Guin, Mosley’s "47" remains a strikingly original young-adult novel that uses elements of myth and speculative fiction to address real-world issues of race and self-liberation. It’s also a remarkably entertaining adventure through time, space, and history. The book is set to become a classic of youth science fiction, and it’s an excellent choice to feature for Black History Month.

Recommended for readers ages 12 and older.

Reviews by Mark David Bradshaw

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Enjoy the new year!