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New Releases from the Bay Area

BOOKS

Living Landscape: The extraordinary rise of the East Bay Regional Park District and how it preserved 10,000 acres
by Laura McCreery  (Wilderness Press, 2010, 194 pp., $24.95)
     Learn how your East Bay parks became the first regional park district in the United States in this picture-and-map laden softcover book by UC Berkeley oral historian Laura McCreery. A runner, hiker, cyclist, swimmer and frequent user of the EBRP system,
McCreery follows the 75-year history of the district that contains 10,000 acres of 65 parks, earning the district status as the largest park agency in the country in her commemorative tome. All the giants in the park district development are present and accounted for.

Drop That Knowledge, Youth Radio Stories by Elisabeth Soep and Vivian Chávez
(University of California Press, 2010, 224 pp., $55 cloth, $21.95 paper)
     Oakland’s Youth Radio, the award-winning downtown-based independent media production company with outlets in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, and the stories its students — primarily young people of color and from low-income backgrounds — create plus the techniques they’re taught to use are the focus of this youth culture book. It’s a bit scholarly and didactic, but soldier on for an enlightening examination of what makes today’s kids tick and how they can and do harness those impulses for meaningful effect. Memorable storytelling; sensible advice. These budding journalists have an unforgettable edge.

CDs

Know Your Bones by The Chills (Brainy Tunes, $15, www.brainytunes.com)
     Subtitled “Creepy Songs for Courageous Kids,” this CD for kids age 5 to adult might be spooky enough for some Halloween fun. Kids who like being grossed out should enjoy these silly songs about zombies, werewolves, cemeteries, skeletons, boogermen, green slime, snot, thunder and lightning, two-headed boys and the like. It’s popish good fun with howls, screams, eerie laughter, oooohing gruesome rhymes and a complete 16-page lyric book. The Chills variety of “haunted rock” is mostly Oaklander Ira Marlowe (vocals, guitars, keyboards, bass, effects and programming), but this CD includes Paul Revelli (drums), Laura Ricci and Patty Spiglanin (backup vocals) and Emily Bezar (piano  on “Know Your Bones”).