young adult Archives - Page 41 of 103

Strongman: The Rise of Five Dictators and the Fall of Democracy
by Kenneth C. Davis (Author)

Booktalk: What makes a country fall to a dictator? How do authoritarian leaders–strongmen–capable of killing millions acquire their power? How are they able to defeat the ideal of democracy? And what can we do to make sure it doesn’t happen again?

See how it happened in these profiles of the most notoriously ruthless dictators in history–Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Saddam Hussein–by examining the forces in these strongmen’s personal lives and historical periods that shaped the leaders they’d become.

Snippet: Learning from the experience of history requires recognizing the patterns of dictatorships–the Stongman’s Playbook. Each of these profiles as laid out a set of steps that go into the making of a dictatorship. This blueprint typically includes the following:

Extreme nationalism that calls for restoring a country’s past glory or greatness.
Placing blame in a single group–usually an ethnic or religious minority, or foreign threat.
Warning of an emergency, often nonexistent, or responding to severe economic distress that threatens the nation.
Calls for “law and order” and eliminating corruption.

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

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Spark and the League of Ursus
by Robert Repino (Author)

Booktalk: Toy Story meets Stranger Things in this tale of warrior teddy bears and the children they protect.

Spark is not your average teddy bear. She’s soft and cuddly, sure, but she’s also a fierce warrior. At night she fulfills her sacred duty: to protect the household from monsters. But Spark’s owner Loretta is growing up and thinks she doesn’t need her old teddy anymore.

When a monster unlike any other descends on the quiet home, everything changes. Children are going missing, and the monster wants Loretta next. Only Spark can stop it. She must call upon the ancient League of Ursus–a secret alliance of teddy bears who are pledged to protect their human friends. Together with an Amazon-princess doll and a timid sock monkey, the bears are all that stands between our world and the one that lies beneath. It will be a heroic chapter in the history of the League . . . if the bears live to tell the tale.

Snippet: Spark rested her head on Loretta’s chest, with her paw on the girl’s rib cage as it rose and fell with each breath. Loretta’s eyelashes fluttered, tickling Spark’s fuzzy ear. Spark liked it. Teddy bears like her were meant for this. They were meant to stay with their human, their best friend, and watch over them in the darkest hours of the night. Outside, the buzzing streetlamp glowed like a phony sun. The toys on the windowsill cast shadows on the rug. And as the house settled in, as the quietest stretch of the night began, Spark saw the monster for the first time.

It began with a scratching sound, loud enough to make Spark lift her head. In the corner of the room, a blackness spread outward. The hardwood floor and painted walls rippled and sank into darkness. Then the void glowed red like the embers of a fire. The light glinted off Loretta’s movie posters. Flickering shadows extended from the bookshelf and the enormous wooden desk. On top of the shelf, the sock monkey named Zed squatted with his paws over his eyes.

. . .