Books

Teachers are already back in the classrooms. A new school is about to open on Red Pump Road at the north end of Bel Air. And across the river in Cecil County, where classes were supposed to have started Wednesday, there's already been an official day off, not for snow, but for the earthquake. Sharpen those pencils, fire up those computers and start the countdown to Christmas Vacation: For most kids in Harford County, school starts Monday.  For students, it's a clean slate, with each class holding the possibility of a good grade — provided the work is done.

After eight days, 15 rides and who knows how much peculiarity, John Waters has wrapped his cross-country, "Zen-like," hitchhiking journey and plans to recount his adventures in a book he'd like to call "Carsick. " The New York Times just spoke to Waters, who's coming down from his adventure in San Francisco, where he has an apartment. We learned yesterday that Waters reached his destination in no small part thanks to a 20-year-old Maryland councilman , who drove the filmmaker through several legs of the trip and for his troubles, earned a key to Waters' San Francisco pad and a personal tour of the city.

English actor Christopher “Kit” Harington, 25, has gone from a virtual unknown to international heartthrob in the course of a year, due to his role as Jon Snow on the HBO hit show “Game of Thrones.” In this Q&A, he talks about power, the rain in Northern Ireland, and how he dislikes the show being called “The Sopranos of Middle Earth.” Had you read the books before you were cast in the show? I hadn't read the books. I got this pilot, though, and I read it. I knew it was HBO, so I knew it would be of a certain quality.

The Memorial Day weekend is a great time to pick up a book about the men and women who have helped preserve America's freedoms, and have fought for our country around the world. There are lots of great books on the topic, and some more personal readings such as diaries. For me, the one that resonates is a yellowed map and journal called "The Thunderbolt across Europe," which describes the route my dad's division, the 83rd Infantry, took in World War II. It led from the beaches of Normandy, across France, into Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge, and into Germany.

The Memorial Day weekend is a great time to pick up a book about the men and women who have helped preserve America's freedoms, and have fought for our country around the world. There are lots of great books on the topic, and some more personal readings such as diaries. For me, the one that resonates is a yellowed map and journal called "The Thunderbolt across Europe," which describes the route my dad's division, the 83rd Infantry, took in World War II. It led from the beaches of Normandy, across France, into Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge, and into Germany.

Is it really necessary to make new laws controlling child sex violators ("Stern sex offender laws see little use," Jan. 24)? We have the laws formed by former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s administration which need only to be enforced! ! F.P. Cordell, Lutherville Send your comments to talkback@baltimoresun.com.

A team of fifth-graders from Dayton Oaks Elementary won the county's third annual Battle of the Books this month. The quiz show-style contest, which tests fifth-graders' knowledge of 15 books, has become somewhat of a big deal in Howard County. More than 1,500 people attended the contest at Atholton High School on April 23, up from last year's 1,000 attendees. "It's grown considerably," said Andrea Misner, publicity specialist for the Howard County Library, which sponsors the event.

Our bookshelf is looking a bit sad lately. So we enlisted some of the young staff at Enoch Pratt Free Library branches to give us their picks for books they're loving right now.

I spent part of the day at the offices of the Maryland Humanities Council, as part of the group that selects the book for the One Maryland One Book reading program. (Is there anyything better than a good discussion about books?) The group of about a dozen bibliophiles reviewed nine books that had been winnowed down from a longer list, all built around this year's theme: courage and unity in a time of war. As my assignment, I read "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak. I really enjoyed the Holocaust-era novel.

A friend of mine has been reading a particularly fine book aloud to his wife these dark autumn-almost-winter nights. It's Simon Winchester's "biography" of that great body of water to Maryland's east. Mr. Winchester's "Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories" (HarperCollins) contains prose, my friend says, that "rolls off the tongue like a long Atlantic swell. A great story well told. " Another friend read the book and said: "Simon Winchester is a man who never wrote a simple declarative sentence.

Zach Teal is just 17, but his love for books led him to write one of his own and to volunteer more than 250 hours at the Finksburg branch of the Carroll County Public Library. "Two hundred and fifty hours is quite unusual for our teen volunteers," said Heather Owings, who was volunteer coordinator at the library and now works at the North Carroll branch. Zach logged those hours over the course of three years, performing such tasks as making crafts for story times, signing in reading program participants, even wearing a mouse costume for a reading of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

When Frank Spruill first looked into franchises more than 30 years ago, he found three options: fast food, automobiles or books. "It was a no brainer," Spruill laughed this past week, standing inside his Little Professor Book Center in Eldersburg. Soon after deciding to pursue the book market, he opened Little Professor in the Carrolltown Center in 1977, where it was located until six years ago, when it moved to its current location at Liberty Station Shopping Center on Liberty Road.

"Don't assume this is a two-hankie book. It is not. You will cry, but you will also laugh. You will experience not only anger, but also gratification. And in the end, you will be uplifted. " - Eileen Rudnick, from her book, "The Glass Between Us" Eldersburg resident Eileen Rudnick is living proof that sometimes out of the worst, the best can come. The evening of Oct. 3, 2000 was just another mild Tuesday, another relatively uneventful day ... until the moment that everything changed for Rudnick, a wife, mother of two, grandmother of two and an accountant.

I'm always interested in finding new ways to use books as art -- whether it's creating a spectrum from shelved books or recycling books as craft projects. Here's another: Litographs , colorful wall prints that incorporate the words of Moby Dick and other classics into designs. Founder Danny Fein notes that with each purchase a book is donated to a community in need through the Baltimore-based International Book Bank. For contemporary books, each print is custom-made from a physical copy of the book that is scanned and printed back out in "art form," he said.

In 1997, Madeleine Albright couldn't have been more certain that she knew everything important about herself and was in possession of every relevant fact about her life. And then, at age 59, just days after being confirmed as U.S. secretary of state, Albright became aware that her parents had kept a big secret from her, her sister, Kathy, and their brother, John. "I had no idea that my family heritage was Jewish," said Albright, a native of Czechoslovakia. "I had no idea that more than two dozen of my relatives died in the Holocaust.

Halfway through the story about his life, Zeus rolled over to have his belly rubbed. He than sat patiently with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. The 8-year-old, 100-pound yellow English/American Labrador knew what was coming at the end of "My Dog Eats Peas" ... and it wasn't peas. It was a big dog bone. "We give him big dog bones because he is so big," said Tonya Neumeister, Zeus' owner and author of the children's book, "My Dog Eats Peas. " And while Zeus does like peas, as the story explains, peas are not exactly the best food for dogs.

Erin Nicolson sifted through her collection of bedtime books and held up her favorite: "Hanna's Sabbath Dress," by Itzhak Schweiger-Dmi'el, about a girl waiting to try on a new outfit, once customary during the Jewish period of rest. While the 4-year old from Owings Mills spoke of staging her own rendition of the tale, her 2-year-old brother Adam pointed to one of his favorites: "Five Little Gefiltes," by Dave Horowitz, a Yiddish parody of the children's song, "Five Little Ducks."

[Spoiler alert: Do not read further in this interview if you have not read "A Storm of Swords," the third book in the series, "The Song of Fire and Ice. "] Scottish actor Richard Madden, 25, has broken into the spotlight by playing Robb Stark on HBO's hit show, "Game of Thrones. " As the second season of the show continues, Stark, the eldest son of the beheaded Ned Stark (Sean Bean), has been declared "King in the North," and has launched war against his family's sworn enemy, the Lannisters, who hold the Iron Throne.

There must be some sort of cosmic alignment this weekend, because just as "The Avengers" movie is released, Free Comic Book Day is upon us. I don't read comics often anymore, but I have fond memories of my parents buying a bunch for me and my sister for our two-hour family trips from Connecticut to New York. I was a super-hero fan; she leaned toward Archie. We sometimes read while curled up on the floor of the family's massive Chevrolet, in the pre-seatbelt days. (Don't try this at home.)

Baltimore Reads hopes to collect 75,000 titles at its 17th annual Books for Kids Day from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday on the parking lot of Poly-Western High School, Falls Road and Cold Spring Lane. The nonprofit organization, dedicated to fostering literacy, will accept new or gently used books and redistribute them through its Book Bank. It collects books for Baltimore-area schools, teachers, Head Start centers, social services agencies, community organizations and needy families.