Monday January BCB: The Necklace by Cheryl Jarvis

Product Description
One day in Ventura, California, Jonell McLain saw a beautiful diamond necklace in a jewelry store window and wondered: Why are personal luxuries so plentiful yet accessible to so few? What if we shared what we desired? Several weeks, dozens of phone calls, and one great leap of faith later, Jonell and twelve other women bought the necklace together–to be passed along among them all.

The dazzling treasure weaves in and out of each woman’s life, reflecting her past, defining her present, making promises for her future. Lending sparkle in surprising and unexpected ways, the necklace comes to mean something dramatically different to each of the thirteen women. With vastly dissimilar histories and lives, they transcend their individual personalities and politics to join together in an uncommon journey–and what started as a quirky social experiment becomes something far richer and deeper.

The Looking Glass Wars

by Frank Beddor

What if Lewis Carroll got it wrong and Alice was really from Wonderland and not just a visitor?

When Princess Alyss Heart, heir to the Wonderland throne escapes through the pool of tears from her insane Aunt Redd after the death of her parents, she finds herself in the strange world of Victorian England where her talent for imagination no longer conjurers real things. Living on the street in London, stealing for food she is eventually caught and taken to an orphanage where she is adopted by the Liddells of Oxford.

Unable to make anyone believe her story Alyss begins to believe that her old life was only a dream. In one last desperate attempt to tell her tale she confides in Charles Dodgson, whose book Alice’s Adventures Underground is so devastatingly wrong that Alyss gives up and resigns herself to grow up in Victorian England.

But Wonderland needs its rightful queen as Redd, the usurper to the throne is destroying everyting good and wonderful. Hatter Madigan, the royal bodyguard, hasn’t given up on Alyss. Searching for Alyss throughout the world beyond the looking glass, he comes across Alice’s Adventures Underground and finds Alyss. But it maybe too late for Wonderland as Alyss no longer remembers how to use her imagination.

Cleverly interwoven with people and animals from the original tale, Beddor brings the wonder of Alice to a whole new generation.

November is Native American Heritage Month

In the early 1900s attempts to set aside a day of recognition for Native Americans eventually culminated into an entire month of honoring N.A. Ancestry. A joint resolution was approved by George H. W. Bush in 1990 designating November as “National American Indian Heritage Month." The name has varied some since 1994 and is now known as Native American Heritage Month. The theme for this year’s month is "Pride in Our Heritage. Honor to Our Ancestors."
Visit the N.A. Heritage Month official site http://nativeamericanheritagemonth.gov/

Please visit these links to learn more about Native Americans:
First Nations Peoples:
http://www.snowhawk.com/fn2.html
Native American Code Talkers:
http://www.nmai.si.edu/education/codetalkers/
Native American Lore:
http://www.ilhawaii.net/~stony/loreindx.html
Native American Technology and Art:
http://www.nativetech.org/
Learn some Cherokee!
http://www.auburn.edu/outreach/dl/echota/
Native Wiki is about worldwide indigenous cultures:
http://www.nativeweb.org/
Index of N.A. Resources on the Internet:
http://www.hanksville.org/NAresources/
Extensive list of links for N.A. Studies:
http://www.southalabama.edu/univlib/picks/native.html
National Museum of the American Indian:
http://www.nmai.si.edu/
Smithsonian American Indian Encyclopedia entries which includes excellent recommended reading lists on Native American topics:
http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/History_and_Culture/AmericanIndian_History.htm


Native Americans & Alabama:
Native American Tribes of Alabama:
http://www.native-languages.org/alabama.htm
Poarch Creek Band of Indians:
http://www.poarchcreekindians.org/xhtml/index.htm
Poarch Creek Thanksgiving Pow Wow:
http://www.poarchcreekindians.org/assets/pdf/2009/1020_atmr_nws_bck_pg.pdf
MOWA:
http://www.uab.edu/uabmagazine/2009/july/losttribe
Alabama tribes of the past:
http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/alabama/
Information about the Alabama Indian Tribe:
http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/alabama/alabamaindianhist.htm
A short history of Alabama Tribes:
http://www.alabamagenealogy.org/indian_tribes_of_alabama.htm
Current Tribes in Alabama:
http://www.500nations.com/Alabama_Tribes.asp
Visit a Native American Park or Site:
http://www.800alabama.com/activities/native-american/
http://www.alabamasfrontporches.com/arts/nativeamerican.html