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Overcoming Distractions

posted by: January 11, 2017 - 7:00am

Cover art for Overcoming DistractionsAttention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is often discussed as it pertains to children, such as how to deal with your ADHD child or how to help an ADHD student. David A. Greenwood discusses the learning disability with respect to adults in Overcoming Distractions: Thriving with Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. As someone who has the disorder himself, Greenwood talks about his start in life and all of the difficulties associated with ADHD. He was able to find a way to make his ADHD work for him and became a successful, self-employed businessman.

 

As Greenwood states, ADHD is often seen in terms of its negative aspects — those who live with it are often easily distracted, procrastinate, have a lack of organization and the tendency to be late and forget things. However, he also discusses the many positives that can be beneficial to those with ADHD, such as being creative and having the ability to “hyperfocus.” He also gives plenty of advice and tips on how to deal with the more negative aspects as well. Greenwood mentions that having a solid foundation and getting proper amounts of sleep and exercise are suggested as ways to deal with the struggles encountered with ADHD.

 

Overcoming Distractions is a well-researched, organized and easy-to-read book that offers a lot of information and advice for adults who struggle with varying types of ADHD, and even those who don’t. Though Greenwood begins with his own experiences, he also brings together information and experiences from a wide range of people who experience adult ADHD, and frequently mentions other resources that he uses himself. Adults with ADHD, may find the tips and suggestions in this book helpful.

 


 
 

The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo

posted by: January 9, 2017 - 7:00am

The Creepy Case Files of Margot MalooEverything that’s new is scary when you’re a kid. Everyone remembers how hard it is to try new food, make new friends or move to new places. But what if you found out that your new neighbors really were monsters? That’s where Charles finds himself in Drew Weing’s excellent all-ages story The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo.

 

Charles is a conservative kid. Like really conservative. He even has his own conspiracy blog. He hates foreign food, art museums, opera and he especially hates the monster that lives in his closet. No one believes it’s real, but luckily Charles meets someone who does: monster expert Margo Maloo. Together they journey into the troll’s lair, expecting to “take him out,” but in a surprise twist, Margo knows him! His name’s Marcus. He’s actually a pretty cool guy.

 

It turns out that Margo is more of a monster mediator than a monster hunter. This means that sometimes she helps kids get rid of monsters, but more often it’s the other way around. We discover that monsters of the city have their own secret community whose way of life is under constant threat from encroaching humans. As Margo drags Charles along on a number of adventures involving these friendly neighborhood ghosts, goblins and ogres, he learns to be more open-minded toward his new and scary neighbors.

 

Inspired by '70s kid lit like Harriet the Spy, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and The Cricket in Times Square, Margo Maloo is an imaginative mystery comic with a strong message of empathy. To stay up to date on Margo’s whereabouts, make sure you follow her faithful assistant Charles F. Thompson on Twitter.


 
 

Hidden Figures

posted by: January 4, 2017 - 7:00am

Hidden FiguresIn 1943, Virginia’s Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory had a problem: It needed computers to help engineer better airplanes to guarantee American success over the aerial battlefields of World War II. The computers required were not the electronic devices we use today; instead, they were women with comprehensive mathematics backgrounds. Women who have largely been forgotten by history despite their role in shaping it.

 

And a core group of these "hidden figures" were black.

 

Using research and interviews, Margot Lee Shetterly highlights the lives of three “human computers” in particular — Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson and Katherine Johnson — who worked at Langley during the war and, once it was established, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. In doing so, she returns these women and their fellow “computers” to their proper place in the tale of one of mankind’s greatest achievements: space travel. The intertwined stories of each woman provide a deeper insight into the ingenuity, hard work and determination from all involved — male or female, black or white — that took us from airplanes to space shuttles.

 

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race isn’t just about a group of mathematicians and engineers whose efforts helped break the sound barrier and put a man on the moon. Shetterly also delves into how the environment these women worked in was impacted by the racial and sexual politics and tensions of the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s and what it meant for each woman to gain the position she did. She celebrates these women and what they achieved despite the discrimination they faced due to their skin color and gender.

 

When you’re finished with the book, you can check out the movie, starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe, in theatres January 5, 2017. Also, readers wanting more information on the contributions of African Americans and women to the space race should check out We Could Not Fail by Steven Moss and Rocket Girls by Nathalia Holt.


 
 

BCPL Reading Challenge - January 2017

posted by: January 3, 2017 - 7:00am

Welcome to the start of  BCPL's Reading Challenge 2017! BCPL's Erica Palmisano previewed the list on WBALTV in December. Below are a list of memoirs for January's reading challenge. Select any title to learn more or to request a copy. Be sure to follow the BCPL's Reading Challenge on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram with #Bwellread to earn prizes at the end of each month! 

 

BCPL Reading Challenge 2017 In Partnership with WBALTV

Cover art for A Life in Parts Cover art for The Cook Up Cover art for Ten Ways Not to Commit Suicide Cover art for The Clancys of Queens Cover art for Love Warrior Cover art for When Nobody Was Watching Cover art for Walk Through Walls Cover art for The Princess Diarist Cover art for Truffle BoyCover art for Dimestore Cover art for When Breathe Becomes Air Cover art for The Beautiful Struggle Cover art for Reading Lolita in Tehran Cover art for Hillbilly Elegy Cover art for The Glass Castle Cover art for Running with Scissors Cover art for Angela's Ashes Cover art for The Liars Club Cover art for The Color of Water Cover art for Fun Home Cover art for Lab Girl Cover art for Talking as Fast as I Can Cover art for My Own Words Cover art for Born to Run Cover art for The Other Wes Moore Cover art for I am Malala Cover art for Kitchen Confidential Cover art for Night Cover art for Bossypants Cover art for Furious George

 


 
 

Dear Amy

posted by: January 2, 2017 - 7:00am

Cover art for Dear AmyIn Helen Callaghan’s electrifying debut novel Dear Amy, a young teacher battles a faceless enemy to save an abducted student’s life. Margot Lewis teaches in an exclusive private high school in Cambridge, England. She has discovered a talent for reaching her students, and they often turn to her for advice. It’s a natural step for Margot to become an advice columnist for the local newspaper under the pseudonym Dear Amy. One day, Margot receives a letter that shakes her down to the depths of her soul. Dear Amy: I’ve been kidnapped by a strange man. I don’t know where I am. Please help me. It's signed by a young girl who went missing 20 years before.  

 

It is a desperate plea that Margot cannot ignore. The letter may be a hoax, but if it’s not, it could be the missing girl’s only chance at survival. When a student from Margot’s class goes missing, Margot knows she cannot stand idly by. Facing the possibility of being accused as a fraud, she takes the letter to the police, where it is authenticated as written by the missing girl. The police renew their investigation, and refer the case to criminologist Martin Forrester of Cambridge University. Together, Martin and Margot descend into the mind of a serial felon. Echoes from Margot’s past resonate into her present. Margot must conquer her own demons in order to defeat this new enemy.

 

Powerful, lyrical and taut with suspense, this literary thriller will seize you from the first page to the last. Helen Callaghan has woven a compelling tale of obsession and evil that takes her characters to the limits of their endurance. Laced with references to the classics, readers of Tana French, Peter Robinson and Gillian Flynn will appreciate the prose as well as the plot.


 
 

The Fever of 1721

posted by: December 28, 2016 - 7:00am

Cover art for The Fever of 1721The past is truly prologue in The Fever of 1721: The Epidemic That Revolutionized Medicine and American Politics. Author Stephen Coss transports readers to a time when newspaper publishers incited petty feuds and questioned scientific progress in order to increase their profit margin. An outbreak of smallpox provided the perfect opportunity for the new publisher James Franklin and his indentured servant and brother Benjamin to mock inoculation efforts by publishing an ill-informed doctor’s fears of the practice. Inoculation proponent Doctor Zabdiel Boylston found an ally in Cotton Mather to assist in his mission to inoculate willing Bostonians. In an obvious attempt to ease his guilty conscience for his role in the Salem witch trials, Mather gambled that Doctor Boylston would save more lives through inoculation than Mather had condemned through spectral evidence.

 

Meanwhile, fear of a subversive slave revolt was spawned when enslaved Africans shared their history of inoculation. It was not long before Bostonians feared the new medical practice more than the disease, owing to the compounding factors of a former Salem minister, images of a slave revolt and egregious medical editorials. As a result, the fever of 1721 would be remembered as one of the worst smallpox outbreaks in the Americas.

 

As Coss tracked the outbreak of smallpox across Boston and into the neighboring towns, another fever spread through the Massachusetts Bay Colony. An argument between the Royal Governor and James Franklin landed the latter in the jail, inspiring his brother to take up his cause in the name of freedom of the press. The events of 1721 not only set the stage for revolution, but helped shape the political and scientific mind of a young indentured man who would become known as “The First American.”


 
 

2017 Reading Challenge

posted by: December 23, 2016 - 4:14pm

2017 Reading ChallengeIn partnership with WBAL TV 11

Book lovers: Are you up for a challenge? Book clubs: Want topics for which books to discuss next? Baltimore County Public Library and WBAL-TV 11 have just the thing for you — the 2017 Baltimore County Public Library Reading Challenge.

 

The challenge, which is a yearlong list of topics from which readers choose a book to read each month, is designed as a fun way for our customers to explore a variety of genres and encourage a lifelong love of reading. It includes a variety of themes that range from important (February’s “Read a book honoring Black History Month”), nostalgic (June’s “Re-read a book from your childhood”), fun (July’s “Read a book you faked reading in high school"), provocative (September’s “Read a book that was banned at some point") and more.

 

Participants are encouraged to take a photograph of themselves holding the book (or just the book for those who are camera-shy) they’ve chosen for a particular month along with the hashtag #Bwellread on Instagram, Facebook and/or Twitter. Two photographs will be randomly chosen on the last business day of each month and winners will receive $25 Amazon gift cards.


 
 

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