The Adult Services Department wishes to thank our very generous sponsors of the Adult Winter Reading Program:

Ida Mae Jones loves to fly airplanes. Ever since her father taught her how to fly a crop-dusting plane, Ida Mae has wanted to get her pilot license. There is just one problem: she is a woman. And despite the fact that she is an excellent flyer, she is still denied her license. As World War II begins and men are sent off to fight, the Women Airforce Service Pilots look for women to help their country. Ida Mae is ready to jump at the opportunity but soon learns that she could be denied this chance because she is African American. Determined to fly, Ida Mae decides to take extreme measures to join the Service, including making a fake license and using her fair skin to pass as a white woman. Can she pull it off?

Dear John is an amazing love story between two people-a young naive college student and a guy in the army. It is told from the man's perspective. He captures your heart from the start despite his roughness. As in the case of all books, the book is a better story than the movie.

Submitted by: Stacy Jelonek

The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, a boy growing up in Afghanistan during the 1960s into the 1970s. His father is rich and he has a friend whose father is Amir's father's servant. Once the government in Afghanistan collapses, Amir and his father leave their mansion and servants, and flee, ending up in America. In the 1990s, life is good for Amir, until he receives a call one day which calls him to return to his homeland. While this is a work of fiction, Khaled Hosseini is a fantastic author who tells his story against the backdrop of history.

Submitted by: Lou Costa

I really enjoyed this book about the complexities of love. In it, a married woman returns to her hometown and is reunited with her first love. Their relationship is all-consuming and she is unable to maintain her other relationships; with friends, family, her daughter or her husband. But this book is more than a love story; it is about many intertwining relationships in a small town.

Submitted by: April Helms

On Wednesday, February 10th, the library will be participating in an all-day, state-wide event with other libraries called Snapshot: One Day in the Life of Your Library. This event hopes to show how important Illinois libraries are to their communities. We will be gathering statistics, taking photos, and recording your comments. Your presence is needed; please come out to show your support!

How much do you love your library? Let us know by sending us a valentine. Blank valentine cards are scattered all over the library for you to fill out. (You can fill out more than one if you want.) Drop your valentine cards off in the various valentine mailboxes or at the Reference Desk.

As a Valentine's Day present to you, there's a big bowl of valentine candy (until supplies run out) across from the main entrance.

This is an interesting little book that's quite quick to read. The author intersperses her own experiences with unemployment and financial hardship during this recession with her family's experiences during the Great Depression. She also discovers her grandmother's fully preserved recipe collection. Each chapter is accompanied by recipes that her family cooked during the Great Depression and those that she is cooking today.

It might be cold and snowy outside, but you can still have fun with free passes from the Museum Adventure Pass Program. One example of an exciting, upcoming program is the Husky Heroes event this weekend at the Morton Arboretum. The event is free (admission for 4 is covered by the M.A.P. Program), and will include Siberian husky sled pulling, skijoring, speed demonstrations, movie showings, and meeting the huskies. All you need is your library card. Ask at the Reference Desk or Youth Services Desk for more details.

I found this book, the first in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, to be as fresh and new as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was when it was first published. The series follows the adventures of young Perseus Jackson, who finds out his father is one of the Greek gods. Percy spends part of the summer at a camp for children who have one mortal and one immortal parent (known as "Half-Bloods"). In this first book, Percy must go on a quest to prevent an Olympian war when one of Zeus' thunderbolts is stolen. Recommended.

Submitted by:
MJ Frank