Patch Picks: Books for National Reading Week

In honor of National Reading Week/Read Across America, Patchogue Patch has teamed up with local librarians to put together a list of recommendations for this week's Patch Picks. Do you have a favorite book? Tell us about it in the comments!

Children's Books

The following list was recommended by Jane Drake, Head of Patchogue-Medford Library's Children's and Parents' Services, and by Elaine Perez, Children's Librarian.

1. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

3. Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip Christian Stead

4. A Dog's Life: Autobiography of a Stray by Ann M. Martin

5. Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Adults Books

Recommended by Patchogue-Medford librarian Bruce Silverstein. Editor's Note: The following book descriptions are written by Silverstein:

The first two recommended novels are by medical doctors and continue the trend of physicians who know how to tell a great story. Both are sweeping works, covering many years in the lives of their characters, are full of medical knowledge and learning, and introduce the reader to two societies of which they may not be familiar.

1. Consumption by Kevin Patterson

Kevin Patterson's Consumption is the story of Victoria, a young Inuit girl who is sent away from her family for treatment of tuberculosis. When she returns many years later, she finds her village and her people greatly changed. Consumption is both literal and metaphoric in this book. The title refers to tuberculosis, but really stands for the effects of the modern world and the West on a traditional society. Will Victoria and her Inuit society be able to survive the collision with the modern world? Family conflicts lead to great tragedy in this story. The stark, barren and unforgiving Canadian tundra lends a wonderful flavor to this novel. Patterson has managed to combine a great psychological study, wonderful characters, and a suspenseful read into one volume.

2. Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese follows the lives of two twin boys in Ethiopia beginning in the 1950s. The product of an illicit union between an Indian nun and a Scottish doctor, the boys grow up in a charity hospital with a makeshift adopted family after their father abandons them. They find that they share an almost psychic connection to one another and a love for medicine, but also realize that their background and upbringing will always make them outsiders. Torn apart by their love for the same woman and political turmoil, the two brothers find themselves forced to separate. One brother goes to America to study medicine and make a new life. However, he finds that his past eventually catches up to him, and he finds himself reunited with his long lost father and brother in a reunion that may destroy the whole family. An epic story of family and destiny not to be missed.

3. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

In The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie Alan Bradley introduces us to Flavia de Luce, an 11-year old chemistry wiz who loves to dabble in poisons and puzzles. She lives in 1950 England with her two insufferable sisters and her eccentric father. When a stranger comes calling to confront her father, and the next day is found dying in the garden, Flavia goes into action. She has to prove her father innocent when he is arrested for murder and she seems to know her way around a crime scene. This witty tale and the unique character of Flavia will meet with the approval of mystery lovers and Anglophiles alike.

4. Still Life by Louise Penny

With its cozy inns, restaurants and antique stores, the village of Three Pines in the woods of Quebec might seem like the ideal place to spend a cold winter. When a local woman is found dead in the woods, everyone assumes it was a hunting accident, but when Chief Inspector Gamache of the Surete is called in to investigate he discovers many dark secrets and hidden pasts and resentments among the residents. Louise Penny in Still Life writes a traditional mystery with dark undercurrents. This first book in the series introduces the colorful characters of Three Pines who have a lifetime of secrets to reveal.

5. The Clearing by Tim Gautreaux

A backwater mill town in 1920s Louisiana is the setting for Tim Gautreaux's The Clearing. Randolph Aldridge is sent by his wealthy industrialist father to run the mill the family has purchased, but also to reconnect with his brother Byron, a shell-shocked veteran of the Great War. While Randolph is trying to heal his unstable brother, he comes into increasingly dangerous conflict with a group of Chicago gangsters attempting to control the illegal liquor trade. Gautreaux makes wonderful use of the steamy Louisiana bayou environs, creating a wonderful sense of place along with a growing sense of menace, tension and evil.