Selkie Girl by Laurie Brooks Elin Jean lives on the Orkney Islands. She doesn’t know why she has webbing in between her fingers, only that the bullying that disfigurement causes has kept her from having any social life outside her croft. Though she adores her mother and grandfather, the only person in the village she thinks she might be able to be friends with is Tam, a gypsy boy even lower in society than she is. She does not know why her father gets so upset at the amount of time she spends in or near the ocean, or why she is the only person in the villager so upset by the annual baby seal cull. When she is sixteen, she finally learns that her mother is a selkie, kept with her father and aging prematurely because of her own seal skin, hidden by Elin Jean’s father. Now Elin Jean has a choice of living with selkies or humans herself, ultimately finding herself on a quest to find the deep answer to her own question. The story isn’t clearly set in any time, though the place is vivid and the characters, especially Elin Jean, ring true. The lyrical language speaks of the enduring power of music, dance and story. This is a beautiful and timeless take on the ancient stories of the selkies, as well as a solid coming-of-age tale.
Sacred Myths: Stories of World Religions by Marilyn MacFarlane When I was in the sixth grade at a religious school, my teacher skipped the brief pages on other religions at the beginning of our religion text. She was trying to teach us Christianity, not those other false religions. 
Gunnerkrigg Court: Orientation by Tom Siddell And now for something fun. Gunnerkrigg Court is the first print volume of a popular web comic, set in a spooky British boarding school/industrial complex. Our heroine is young Antimony Carver, just starting at Gunnerkrigg Court following her mother’s death. In the first short story, Antimony finds that she has a second shadow, which turns out to need help getting to the dark and forbidden Gillitie Woods, across a brightly lighted bridge. In typical Harry Potter fashion, finding little help from adults, Antimony finds her own solution – scrounging enough spare parts to build a robot to help the little stray shadow. As the stories progress, Antimony is befriended by a girl named Kat, whose parents (now teachers at the school), Antimony’s mother and now-missing father, as well as a few others, were part of a tight group of friends. Again as in that Potter book, there’s a hint that they were involved in something bigger than innocent school friendships, but the mystery isn’t fleshed out much in this first book. Though the mother’s death and the mystery, as well as the literally dark setting, give the whole book a dark feel, it’s dark and snarky humor. In one of the early stories, for example, Antimony’s favorite stuffed animal is possessed by an untrustworthy but not altogether malignant demon who finds himself forced to obey her commands. Read it on line if you prefer, but please do read it. Assuming, of course, you like magic and technology fused with dark humor.
A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce A couple of years ago, I talked about the 
Impossible by Nancy Werlin Lucy Scarborough is 17. Decently popular, on the track team, she also gets along very well with her foster parents, Soledad and Leo. Her biggest secret – from her friends at least – is that the crazy homeless woman who sometimes hangs around school, singing an odd variation on “Scarborough Fair”, is her mother. Then – wham-bang – Lucy turns 18, gets pregnant by rape, and finds that the song is a puzzle. She has until the baby is born to solve three impossible tasks posed in the song in order to save herself from insanity and break an ancient curse from an evil elfin knight. Though it takes some mental struggling, Lucy, her foster parents, and the boy who used to be next door but is now staying in the same house, decide to form a sort of Fellowship of the Ring rather than signing up for medication. Though they discuss alternatives both to this and to continuing the pregnancy in the first place, Lucy decides to keep the baby and she and Zach eventually fall in love and get married – Zach convincing her on the grounds that if he’s the legal father, the baby won’t be left in limbo if the quest fails. (Ever self-aware, Lucy is amused at how traditional people are as revealed by how pleased they are that she’s married.) These choices did set off my traditional-values blinkers a little, but it works in context – the love of parent for child and real love by choice opposed to the Elfin Knight, who says in the ballad, “She must be a true love of mine” – no choice given. The thing that bothered me most was that the Elfin Knight is obviously present through much of the story, but no one except the family dog recognizes him until very close to the end. These issues aside, I found myself discussing Lucy’s problems over dinner and couldn’t wait to find out how they would solve the problems and beat the Elfin Knight.
The Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth by Sheila Kitzinger
The Birth Partner by Penny Simkin When I prepared to give birth, I hired a doula, a professional birth support person. She made a huge difference in making the whole birth experience smoother and more positive, and I recommend hiring a doula to anyone giving birth. But, suppose you can’t hire a doula? Suppose you want your parenting partner or your best friend to come to the birth with you? Or, that such a person wants to educate him or herself to be able to help you even if you have a doula as well. In that case, you want this book. It covers pregnancy, birth and newborn care from the perspective of a partner, rather than the mother or a medical professional. It includes such topics as preparing for labor, helping the mother find an effective labor coping pattern, common medical interventions, their side effects and risks and how to discuss them with hospital staff, what to do if there is a personality conflict between the mother and the assigned nurse or doctor, and how to best support a mother in labor who’s changed her mind about what she wants from her birth plan. I read the old, falling-apart edition that my midwifery still keeps. This edition placed rather more stress on the importance of learning and practicing several breathing patterns than is currently in vogue (my birth class instructor said that practicing breathing before you were in labor was like practicing breathing for a marathon without running); I don’t know if the new edition has changed. Overall, however, the information was extremely helpful. There are even helpful summary pages labeled in white text on darker bars on the sides of pages, so you can fan out the pages and find the part you need in the heat of things. Simkin is the founder of Doulas of North America/DONA, and this book is required reading for many doula training courses as well.
Martha Stewart’s Encyclopedia of Crafts by Martha Stewart This is an A to W book of enticing crafts requiring relatively little skill to make with mostly easily available supplies, of the kind that could be finished in an evening or weekend. Much to the dismay of my mother and husband, there are no years-to-become-intermediate crafts like knitting, bobbin lace or miniature painting. However, what is there is very good. Each type of craft includes the basics of the technique including materials and projects, including templates where appropriate. The glossary includes illustrated supplies by type – never have glues looked so attractive. Make flowers out of beads, clay, crepe paper, stamps, cut paper. There are lots of seasonal decorations, home décor, small gift and adornment items. And the book has that special Martha magic, where everything looks both possible and beyond perfect. It is so attractive, even the normally craft-averse LB wanted to look through the whole book and try some (napkin rings decorated with flowers made of pine cones.) Set-up costs seem prohibitive for most people to try more than a few of the many crafts, but the ideas are great and the crafts would mostly work well in small groups of friends or older kids, to split the cost and multiply the fun.
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner When we first meet the thief, Gen is in jail, chained hand and foot and, without urgency, plotting how to escape. It turns out Gen had bragged that he could the king’s seal, and was promptly arrested when he succeeded. But very soon he is offered a deal: travel with the king’s Magus to steal an object from another kingdom so old and mythic that almost no one believes it exists now, if it ever did. After all, it was purportedly a gift from the Gods, and who in these civilized times really believes in the Gods? If found, it would enable the king to take over the neighboring mountain land of Eddis without a struggle. Gen also is named for Eugenides, the God of thieves, in this Greek-like world with somewhat more advanced technology than that of classical mythology. As the journey begins, Gen is whiny and belligerent, struggling with the Magus and the nobles and soldier sent to accompany them. But as the story goes on, new aspects of both Gen and his companions are revealed, and the final plot twist was entirely unexpected. The people are interesting, he setting beautiful, and the politics tricky enough to be interesting without involving so many players as to require great mental power. I plowed right through onto the next two, and am now joining the friends who loaned me the books in hoping for more.-
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