September 23, 2021

September 2, 2021

Several new books for adults, and lots of books for kids have just arrived! These will be ready to check out after Labor Day, so feel free to place holds by emailing the library (as of this writing, most titles haven’t yet made it into the catalog).

Adult Fiction

Another Kind of Eden by James Lee Burke
The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny
False Witness by Karin Slaughter
Black Ice: A Thriller by Brad Thor

Adult Nonfiction

Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, and Jason Stanford

Picture Books

Be Quiet! by Ryan T. Higgins

Junior Fiction

The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes
We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly
Healer of the Water Monster by Brian Young

Junior Graphic Novels

Dungeon Critters by Natalie Riess and Sara Goetter

Junior Nonfiction

(These books were purchased with a grant from the American Library Association’s Libraries Transforming Communities: Focus on Small and Rural Libraries.)

Light Waves by David A. Adler, illustrated by Anna Raff
Vincent’s Starry Night and Other Stories: A Children’s History of Art by Michael Bird, illustrated by Kate Evans
A Garden in Your Belly: Meet the Microbes in Your Gut by Marsha D’yans
A Child’s Introduction to the Night Sky: The Story of the Stars, Planets, and Constellations – and How You Can Find Them in the Sky by Michael Driscoll, illustrated by Meredith Hamilton
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, adapted by Jean Mendoza and Debbie Reese
Cells: An Owner’s Handbook by Carolyn Fisher
Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: Big Bad Ironclad – A Civil War Tale by Nathan Hale
Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: Donner Dinner Party – A Pioneer Tale by Nathan Hale
Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: Alamo All-Stars – A Texas Tale by Nathan Hale
Seven Golden Rings: A Tale of Music and Math by Rajani LaRocca, illustrated by Archana Sreenivasan
History Smashers: Women’s Right to Vote by Kate Messner, illustrated by Dylan Meconis
Winged Wonders: Solving the Monarch Migration Mystery by Meeg Pincus, illustrated by Yas Imamura
One Small Square: Woods by Donald M. Silver, illustrated by Patricia J. Wynne
One Small Square: Pond by Donald M. Silver, illustrated by Patricia J. Wynne
One Small Square: Backyard by Donald M. Silver, illustrated by Patricia J. Wynne
A City Through Time: From Ancient Colony to Vast Metropolis by Philip Steele, illustrated by Steven Noon
Follow Your Stuff: Who Makes It, Where Does It Come From, How Does It Get to You? by Kevin Sylvester, illustrated by Michael Hlinka

August 22, 2021

More books – yay! There are a few new books for adults as well as the first shipment of junior nonfiction kids’ books purchased with our grant from the American Library Association’s Libraries Transforming Communities: Focus on Small and Rural Libraries. Some books have already been entered into the system, but others will be added in on Monday, so if you’re interested in checking out any titles that aren’t in the catalog, just email the library or call 763-2875.

Adult Fiction

It’s Better This Way by Debbie Macomber
The Man with the Silver Saab by Alexander McCall Smith
The Bone Code: A Temperance Brennan Novel by Kathy Reichs

Adult Nonfiction

This Is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan

Junior Nonfiction

You’re Invited to a Moth Ball: A Nighttime Insect Celebration by Loree Burns
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Elements: The Powers, Uses, and Histories of Every Atom in the Universe by Lisa Congdon
Grow: Secrets of Our DNA by Nicola Davies
Baby Beats: Let’s Learn 4/4 Time! board book by Odd Dot
Baby Beats: Let’s Learn 2/4 Time! board book by Odd Dot
Baby Beats: Let’s Learn 3/4 Time! board book by Odd Dot
The Ocean in Your Bathtub by Seth Fishman, illustrated by Isabel Greenberg
History Smashers: The Mayflower by Kate Messner
History Smashers: The Titanic by Kate Messner
The Bacteria Book: The Big World of Really Tiny Microbes by Steve Mould
Anatomicum: Welcome to the Museum by Jennifer Z. Paxton, illustrated by Katy Wiedemann
Facts vs. Opinions vs. Robots by Michael Rex
The Language of the Universe: A Visual Exploration of Mathematics by Colin Stuart, illustrated by Ximo Abadia
The Speed of Starlight: An Exploration of Physics, Sound, Light, and Space by Colin Stuart, illustrated by Ximo Abadia
A Child Through Time: The Book of Children’s History by Phil Wilkerson, illustrated by Steve Noon
A Street Through Time: A 12,000 Year Journey Along the Same Street by DK, illustrated by Steve Noon

August 17, 2021

We just received a box filled with books for both adults and kids. Everything has been entered into the system, so feel free to place a hold in the catalog, or simply email me or call 763-2875 to reserve one – or several! (Due to time constraints, I’m no longer adding descriptions/images or linking titles to reviews. Sorry about that!)

Adult Fiction

Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby
Golden Girl by Elin Hilderbrand
Castle Shade: A Novel of Suspense Featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes by Laurie R. King
Silver Tears by Camilla Lackberg
A Distant Grave: A Mystery by Sarah Stewart Taylor

Young Adult Fiction

Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Bouley

Junior Graphic Novels

Dog Man: Mothering Heights by Dav Pilkey

Junior Nonfiction

History Smashers: The American Revolution by Kate Messner

Easy Readers

Dragon Masters: Wave of the Sea Dragon by Tracey West

Picture Books

Itty-Bitty-Kitty-Corn by Shannon Hale
Many Shapes of Clay: A Story of Healing by Kenesha Sneed
Crab Cake: Turning the Tide Together by Andrea Tsurumi
Milo Imagines the World by Matt de la Pena

July 27, 2021

New LUV Co-op DVDs have arrived! They’re not entered into the system, so if you’re interested in checking out one (or several), just email the library. (Due to time constraints, I’m no longer linking new arrivals to reviews, so if you have a question about which version a movie might be or whether that really is the film you’ve been waiting for, just send me an email, and I’ll let you know.)

20,000 Days on Earth (Nick Cave)
Adam’s Rib
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett – the best Sherlock, in my opinion!)
Before I Fall
The Beguiled
The Big Sick
Billy Elliot
Blade Runner
Bottle Rocket
Captain Phillips
Central Park Five (Ken Burns)
Charlie Countryman
Chasing Ice
Chronically Metropolitan
Climate of Doubt
Closed Circuit
Crime and Punishment
Crumb
Deadwood (Season 1)
Deadwood (Season 2)
Death Comes to Pemberley
The Death of Stalin
The Debt
Decoding the Weather Machine
The Descendants
The Devil’s Mistress
Downton Abbey: The Motion Picture
Durrells in Corfu (Season 3)
Endeavor
The English Patient
Enough to Live ON: The Arts of WPA
Equity
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Far from the Madding Crowd
The Farewell
First You Dream
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Parcifal
Pitching In
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Self/less
Seymour: An Introduction

July 7, 2021

The books for adults have finally arrived! There are lots of great novels for summer reading, some interesting nonfiction books, and quite a few books on the opioid epidemic – including several filled with practical help for those who need it. Everything has been entered into the system, so feel free to place a hold in the catalog, or simply email me or call 763-2875 to reserve one – or several! (Due to time constraints, I’m no longer adding descriptions/images or linking titles to reviews. Sorry about that!)

Adult Fiction

The Newcomer by Mary Kay Andrews
A Gambling Man by David Baldacci
Find You First by Linwood Barclay
Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian
Win by Harlan Coben
Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano
The Saboteurs by Clive Cussler
The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
Swimming Back to Trout River by Linda Rui Feng
People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Shadow Box by Luanne Rice
Legacy by Nora Roberts
That Summer by Jennifer Weiner

Adult Nonfiction

The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel (graphic novel)
A Gentle Path through the Twelve Steps by Patrick Carnes, Ph.D.
A Gentle Path through the Twelve Principles by Patrick Carnes, Ph.D.
Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature by Angus Fletcher
Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change by Jeffrey Foote
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction by Gabor Maté, MD
Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones
Stranger Care: A Memoir of Loving What Isn’t Ours by Sarah Sentilles
Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard

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June 7, 2021

Lots of new kids’ books and several books for adults have arrived! (Don’t worry – there are many more adult novels on the way.) These have all been entered into the system, so feel free to place a hold in the catalog, or simply email me or call 763-2875 to reserve one – or several! (Due to time constraints, I’m no longer adding descriptions/images or linking titles to reviews. Sorry about that!)

Board Books

I Am Peace: A Book of Mindfulness by Susan Verde
I Am Human: A Book of Empathy by Susan Verde

Picture Books

The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerfeld
Don’t Hug Doug (He Doesn’t Like It) by Carrie Finison
Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkest
We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom
The Camping Trip by Jennifer K. Mann
Evelyn Del Rey Is Moving Away by Meg Madina
Sophie’s Squash by Pat Zietlow Miller
Margaret’s Unicorn by Briony May Smith
I Am the Storm by Jane Yolen

Easy Readers

Uni Bakes a Cake by Amy Krause Rosenthal
Uni Brings Spring by Amy Krause Rosenthal
Uni Goes to School by Amy Krause Rosenthal
Heat of the Lava Dragon by Tracey West

Junior Fiction

Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston
A Boy Called Bat by Elana K. Arnold
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume
Mr. Terupt Falls Again by Rob Buyea
Stand Up, Yumi Chung! by Jessica Kim
The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Perez
Freak the Mighty by W.R. Philbrick
The List of Things that Will Not Change by Rebecca Stead

Junior Nonfiction

Pick Me Up: Stuff You Need to Know by David Roberts
Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth (A DK book edited by Angeles Gavira Guerrero)
Wow in the World: The How and Why of the Human Body: From Your Tongue to Your Tows and All the Guts In Between by Mindy Thomas

Junior Graphic Novels

This Was Our Pact by Ryan Andrews
Catstronauts: Mission Moon by Drew Brockington
Stepping Stones by Lucy Knisley
The Leak by Kate Reed Petty
Nat Enough by Maria Scrivan
5 Worlds, Book 4: The Amber Anthem by Mark Siegel
Stargazing by Jen Wang

Adult Fiction

One Good Deed by David Baldacci
The Secret Stealers by Jane Healey
A Deadly Influence by Mike Omer
The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
We Begin at the End by Christopher Whitaker

Adult Nonfiction

The Side Dish Bibe by America’s Test Kitchen
Modernize Your Resume: Get Noticed… Get Hired, 2nd Edition by Wendy Enlow
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker
Mushrooms of the Northeast: A Simple Guide to Common Mushrooms by Teresa Marrone
Vermont Firsts and Other Claims to Fame by Richard B. Smith
Growing Vegetables: All the Know-How and Encouragement You Need to Grow – and Fall in Love with – Your Brand New Food Garden by Jessica Sowards
All About Dinner by Molly Stevens

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May 22, 2021

New LUV Co-op DVDs and audiobooks have arrived! They’re not entered into the system, so if you’re interested in checking out one (or several), just email the library. (Due to time constraints, I’m no longer linking new arrivals to reviews, so if you have a question about which version a movie might be or whether that really is the audiobook you’ve been waiting for, just send me an email, and I’ll let you know.)

DVDs

Blue Ruin
Boyhood
City in the Sky
Cloudstreet
Computer Chess
Conjuring
Constitution USA
Counselor
Crucible
Dad’s Army
Death on the Railroad
Dolce Vita – Criterion
Dr. Who: Key to Time (Tom Baker)
Drive
Durrells in Corfu
Earrings of Madame De…
Eating Raoul
Eighth Grade
Far from the Tree
Florence Foster Jenkins
Forces of Nature
Ford vs. Ferrari
Framed
Frankenweenie
Game of Thrones (Final Season)
The General (Buster Keaton)
Gentle Yoga with Jane Adams
The Grapes of Wrath
Guilty Pleasures
Holiday
Green Book
The Imitation Game
Into the Woods
The Intouchables
King of Devil’s Island
Ricki and the Flash
Rickover: The Birth of Nuclear Power
Ronaldo
We Were Here

Audiobooks

Monica Ali: Brick Lane
Stephen E. Ambrose: Comrades: Brothers, Fathers, Heroes, Sons, Pals
C.J. Box: Out of Range
Michael Connelly: The Night Fire
Timothy Egan: The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
Janet Evanovitch: Fearless Fourteen
Michael Finkel: The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
Candice Fox: Redemption Point: A Crimson Lake Novel, Book 2
Alan Furst: The Spies of Warsaw
Robert Galbraith: Career of Evil
Adam Gopnik: Through the Children’s Gate
John Grisham: Gray Mountain
Sara Gruen: Water for Elephants
Yaa Gyasi: Homegoing
Joe Hill: 20th Century Ghosts
Casey Hill: Hidden
Adam Johnson: The Orphan Master’s Son
Erik Larson: Thunderstruck
Henning Mankell: The White Lioness: A Kurt Wallander Mystery
Ian McEwan: Atonement
Heather Morris: The Tattooist of Auschwitz
Vicki Myron: Dewey the Library Cat: A True Story
Tom Reiss: The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo
Erich Maria Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front
Gavriel Savit: Anna and the Swallow Man (YA Novel)
Lisa Scottoline: Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog
William Shakespeare: Cymbeline
William Shakespeare: Henry V
William Shakespeare: Two Noble Kinsmen
B.A. Shapiro: The Muralist
Helen Simonson: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
Julia Spencer-Fleming: All Mortal Flesh: A Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne Mystery
Mark Sullivan: Beneath a Scarlet Sky
James L. Swanson: Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer
Anne Tyler: A Spool of Blue Thread
J.D. Vance: Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
Tara Westover: Educated: A Memoir
Jeffery Zaslow: The Girls from Ames

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April 28, 2021

New adult books have arrived! As always, click on a title’s image to read its Goodreads review, and if you see something you’d like to check out, you can place a hold in the catalog or email the library.

Adult Fiction

Three Hours in Paris by Cara Black

In June of 1940, when Paris fell to the Nazis, Hitler spent a total of three hours in the City of Light—abruptly leaving, never to return. To this day, no one knows why.

Kate Rees, a young American markswoman, has been recruited by British intelligence to drop into Paris with a dangerous assignment: assassinate the Führer. Wrecked by grief after a Luftwaffe bombing killed her husband and infant daughter, she is armed with a rifle, a vendetta, and a fierce resolve. But other than rushed and rudimentary instruction, she has no formal spy training. Thrust into the red-hot center of the war, a country girl from rural Oregon finds herself holding the fate of the world in her hands. When Kate misses her mark and the plan unravels, Kate is on the run for her life—all the time wrestling with the suspicion that the whole operation was a set-up.

New York Times bestselling author Cara Black is at her best as she brings Occupation-era France to vivid life in this masterful, pulse-pounding story about one young woman with the temerity—and drive—to take on Hitler himself.

The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré

The unforgettable, inspiring story of a teenage girl growing up in a rural Nigerian village who longs to get an education so that she can find her “louding voice” and speak up for herself, The Girl with the Louding Voice is a simultaneously heartbreaking and triumphant tale about the power of fighting for your dreams.  Despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in her path, Adunni never loses sight of her goal of escaping the life of poverty she was born into so that she can build the future she chooses for herself – and help other girls like her do the same.  Her spirited determination to find joy and hope in even the most difficult circumstances imaginable will “break your heart and then put it back together again” (Jenna Bush Hager on The Today Show) even as Adunni shows us how one courageous young girl can inspire us all to reach for our dreams…and maybe even change the world.

Red Widow by Alma Katsu

An exhilarating spy thriller written by an intelligence veteran about two women CIA agents whose paths become intertwined around a threat to the Russia Division–one that’s coming from inside the agency.

Lyndsey Duncan worries her career with the CIA might be over. After lines are crossed with another intelligence agent during an assignment, she is sent home to Washington on administrative leave. So when a former colleague–now Chief of the Russia Division–recruits her for an internal investigation, she jumps at the chance to prove herself. Lyndsey was once a top handler in the Moscow Field Station, where she was known as the “human lie detector” and praised for recruiting some of the most senior Russian officials. But now, three Russian assets have been exposed–including one of her own–and the CIA is convinced there’s a mole in the department. With years of work in question and lives on the line, Lyndsey is thrown back into life at the agency, this time tracing the steps of those closest to her.

Meanwhile, fellow agent Theresa Warner can’t avoid the spotlight. She is the infamous “Red Widow,” the wife of a former director killed in the field under mysterious circumstances. With her husband’s legacy shadowing her every move, Theresa is a fixture of the Russia Division, and as she and Lyndsey strike up an unusual friendship, her knowledge proves invaluable. But as Lyndsey uncovers a surprising connection to Theresa that could answer all of her questions, she unearths a terrifying web of secrets within the department, if only she is willing to unravel it….

A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet

Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction
One of the New York Times‘ Ten Best Books of the Year
Named one of the best novels of the year by Time, Washington Post, NPR, Chicago Tribune, Esquire, BBC, and many others

A Children’s Bible follows a group of twelve eerily mature children on a forced vacation with their families at a sprawling lakeside mansion. Contemptuous of their parents, the children decide to run away when a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, embarking on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside. Lydia Millet’s prophetic and heartbreaking story of generational divide offers a haunting vision of what awaits us on the far side of Revelation.

The Sanatorium: A Novel by Sarah Pearse

You won’t want to leave. . . until you can’t.

Half-hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel.

An imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But Elin’s taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept.

Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge–there’s something about the hotel that makes her nervous. And when they wake the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her. With the storm closing off all access to the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic.

Elin is under pressure to find Laure, but no one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And she’s the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they are all in…

Brood: A Novel by Jackie Polzin

An exquisite new literary voice–wryly funny, nakedly honest, beautifully observational, in the vein of Jenny Offill and Elizabeth Strout–depicts one woman’s attempt to keep her four chickens alive while reflecting on a recent loss.

Over the course of a single year, our nameless narrator heroically tries to keep her small brood of four chickens alive despite the seemingly endless challenges that caring for another creature entails. From the forty-below nights of a brutal Minnesota winter to a sweltering summer which brings a surprise tornado, she battles predators, bad luck, and the uncertainty of a future that may not look anything like the one she always imagined.

Intimate and startlingly original, this slender novel is filled with wisdom, sorrow and joy. As the year unfolds, we come to know the small band of loved ones who comprise the narrator’s circumscribed life at this moment. Her mother, a flinty former home-ec teacher who may have to take over the chickens; her best friend, a real estate agent with a burgeoning family of her own; and her husband whose own coping mechanisms for dealing with the miscarriage that haunts his wife are more than a little unfathomable to her.

A stunning and brilliantly insightful meditation on life and longing that will stand beside such modern classics as H is for Hawk and Gilead, Brood rewards its readers with the richness of reflection and unrelenting hope.

Eternal by Lisa Scottoline

#1 bestselling author Lisa Scottoline offers a sweeping and shattering epic of historical fiction fueled by shocking true events, the tale of a love triangle that unfolds in the heart of Rome…in the creeping shadow of fascism.

What war destroys, only love can heal.

Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro grow up as the best of friends despite their differences. Elisabetta is a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist; Marco the brash and athletic son in a family of professional cyclists; and Sandro a Jewish mathematics prodigy, kind-hearted and thoughtful, the son of a lawyer and a doctor. Their friendship blossoms to love, with both Sandro and Marco hoping to win Elisabetta’s heart. But in the autumn of 1937, all of that begins to change as Mussolini asserts his power, aligning Italy’s Fascists with Hitler’s Nazis and altering the very laws that govern Rome. In time, everything that the three hold dear–their families, their homes, and their connection to one another–is tested in ways they never could have imagined.

As anti-Semitism takes legal root and World War II erupts, the threesome realizes that Mussolini was only the beginning. The Nazis invade Rome, and with their occupation come new atrocities against the city’s Jews, culminating in a final, horrific betrayal. Against this backdrop, the intertwined fates of Elisabetta, Marco, Sandro, and their families will be decided, in a heartbreaking story of both the best and the worst that the world has to offer.

Unfolding over decades, Eternal is a tale of loyalty and loss, family and food, love and war–all set in one of the world’s most beautiful cities at its darkest moment. This moving novel will be forever etched in the hearts and minds of readers.

The Life of the Mind by Christine Smallwood

As an adjunct professor of English in New York City with no hope of finding a permanent position, Dorothy feels “like a janitor in the temple who continued to sweep because she had nowhere else to be but who had lost her belief in the essential sanctity of the enterprise.” No one but her boyfriend knows that she’s just had a miscarriage, not even her therapists—Dorothy has two of them. Nor can she bring herself to tell the other women in her life: her friends, her doctor, her mentor, her mother. The freedom not to be a mother is one of the victories of feminism. So why does she feel like a failure?

Piercingly intelligent and darkly funny, The Life of the Mind is a novel about endings: of youth, of professional aspiration, of possibility, of the illusion that our minds can ever free us from the tyranny of our bodies. And yet Dorothy’s mind is all she has to make sense of a world largely out of her control, one where disaster looms and is already here, where things happen but there is no plot. There is meaning, however, if Dorothy figures out where to look, and as the weeks pass and the bleeding subsides, she finds it in the most unlikely places, from a Las Vegas poolside to a living room karaoke session. In literature—as Dorothy well knows—stories end. But life, as they say, goes on.

The Consequences of Fear: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear

As Europe buckles under Nazi occupation, Maisie Dobbs investigates a possible murder that threatens devastating repercussions for Britain’s war efforts in this latest installment in the New York Times bestselling mystery series.

October 1941. While on a delivery, young Freddie Hackett, a message runner for a government office, witnesses an argument that ends in murder. Crouching in the doorway of a bombed-out house, Freddie waits until the coast is clear. But when he arrives at the delivery address, he’s shocked to come face to face with the killer.

Dismissed by the police when he attempts to report the crime, Freddie goes in search of a woman he once met when delivering a message: Maisie Dobbs. While Maisie believes the boy and wants to help, she must maintain extreme caution: she’s working secretly for the Special Operations Executive, assessing candidates for crucial work with the French resistance. Her two worlds collide when she spots the killer in a place she least expects. She soon realizes she’s been pulled into the orbit of a man who has his own reasons to kill—reasons that go back to the last war.

As Maisie becomes entangled in a power struggle between Britain’s intelligence efforts in France and the work of Free French agents operating across Europe, she must also contend with the lingering question of Freddie Hackett’s state of mind. What she uncovers could hold disastrous consequences for all involved in this compelling chapter of the “series that seems to get better with every entry” (Wall Street Journal).

Adult Nonfiction

Distant Skies by Melissa A. Priblo Chapman

Part American road trip, part coming-of-age adventure, and part uncommon love story—a remarkable memoir that explores the evolution of the human-animal relationship, along with the raw beauty of a life lived outdoors.

Melissa Chapman was 23 years old and part of a happy, loving family. She had a decent job, a boyfriend she cared about, and friends she enjoyed. Yet she said goodbye to all of it. Carrying a puppy named Gypsy, she climbed aboard a horse and rode away from everything, heading west.

With no cell phone, no GPS, no support team or truck following with supplies, Chapman quickly learned that the reality of a cross-country horseback journey was quite different from the fantasy. Her solo adventure would immediately test her mental, physical, and emotional resources as she and her four-legged companions were forced to adapt to the dangers and loneliness of a trek that would span over 2,600 miles, beginning in New York State and reaching its end on the other side of the country, in California.

Enchanted by the freedom a nomadic life seemed to promise, the young woman would soon find herself only more deeply connected…to the animals that accompanied her, to the varying and challenging landscapes through which she traveled, and to the people she met on the farms and back roads that crisscross the United States. Chapman’s vigilance in detailing the quietest moments of heroism and beauty, as well as the startling and tragic, yields a read that convinces one of both the magnificence of the countryside and the generosity of the people who call it home. A book for the equestrian, the animal lover, and the outdoor enthusiast—or anyone who dreams about one day bringing a longed-for adventure to life.

No Time Like the Future by Michael J. Fox

The entire world knows Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, the teenage sidekick of Doc Brown in Back to the Future; as Alex P. Keaton in Family Ties; as Mike Flaherty in Spin City; and through numerous other movie roles and guest appearances on shows such as The Good Wife and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Diagnosed at age 29, Michael is equally engaged in Parkinson’s advocacy work, raising global awareness of the disease and helping find a cure through The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, the world’s leading non-profit funder of PD science. His two previous bestselling memoirs, Lucky Man and Always Looking Up, dealt with how he came to terms with the illness, all the while exhibiting his iconic optimism. His new memoir reassesses this outlook, as events in the past decade presented additional challenges.

In No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality, Michael shares personal stories and observations about illness and health, aging, the strength of family and friends, and how our perceptions about time affect the way we approach mortality. Thoughtful and moving, but with Fox’s trademark sense of humor, his book provides a vehicle for reflection about our lives, our loves, and our losses.

Running through the narrative is the drama of the medical madness Fox recently experienced, that included his daily negotiations with the Parkinson’s disease he’s had since 1991, and a spinal cord issue that necessitated immediate surgery. His challenge to learn how to walk again, only to suffer a devastating fall, nearly caused him to ditch his trademark optimism and “get out of the lemonade business altogether.”

Does he make it all of the way back? Read the book.

Magnolia Table: A Collection of Recipes for Gathering, Vol. 2 by Joanna Gaines

Following the launch of her #1 New York Times bestselling cookbook, Magnolia Table, and seeing her family’s own sacred dishes being served at other families’ tables across the country, Joanna Gaines gained a deeper commitment to the value of food being shared. This insight inspired Joanna to get back in the kitchen and start from scratch, pushing herself beyond her comfort zone to develop new recipes for her family, and yours, to gather around. Magnolia Table, Volume 2 is filled with 145 new recipes from her own home that she shares with husband Chip and their five kids, and from the couple’s restaurant, Magnolia Table; Silos Baking Co; and new coffee shop, Magnolia Press. From breakfast to dinner, plus breads, soups, and sides, Magnolia Table, Volume 2 gives readers abundant reasons to gather together. The book is beautifully photographed and filled with dishes you’ll want to bring into your own home, including:

• Mushroom-Gruyére Quiche
• Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread
• Grilled Bruschetta Chicken
• Zucchini-Squash Strata
• Chicken-Pecan-Asparagus Casserole
• Stuffed Pork Loin
• Lemon-Lavender Tart
• Magnolia Press Chocolate Cake

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March 30, 2021

New books for adults have arrived! Click on a title’s image to read its Goodreads review, and if you see something you’d like to check out, you can place a hold in the catalog or email the library.

Adult Fiction

The Red Lotus by Chris Bohjalian

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant comes a twisting story of love and deceit: an American man vanishes on a rural road in Vietnam, and his girlfriend follows a path that leads her home to the very hospital where they met.

Alexis and Austin don’t have a typical “meet cute”—their first encounter involves Alexis, an emergency room doctor, suturing a bullet wound in Austin’s arm. Six months later, they’re on a romantic getaway in Vietnam: a bike tour on which Austin can show Alexis his passion for cycling, and can pay his respects to the place where his father and uncle fought in the war. But then Austin fails to return from a solo ride. Alexis’s boyfriend has vanished, the only clue left behind a bright yellow energy gel dropped on the road.

As Alexis grapples with this bewildering loss, she starts to uncover a series of strange lies that force her to wonder: Where did Austin go? Why did he really bring her to Vietnam? And how much danger has he left her in? Set amidst the adrenaline-fueled world of the emergency room, The Red Lotus is a global thriller about those who dedicate their lives to saving people—and those who peddle death to the highest bidder.

Every Last Fear by Alex Finlay

In one of the year’s most anticipated debut psychological thrillers, a family made infamous by a true crime documentary is found dead, leaving their surviving son to uncover the truth about their final days.

“They found the bodies on a Tuesday.” So begins this twisty and breathtaking novel that traces the fate of the Pine family, a thriller that will both leave you on the edge of your seat and move you to tears.

After a late night of partying, NYU student Matt Pine returns to his dorm room to devastating news: nearly his entire family―his mom, his dad, his little brother and sister―have been found dead from an apparent gas leak while vacationing in Mexico. The local police claim it was an accident, but the FBI and State Department seem far less certain―and they won’t tell Matt why.

The tragedy makes headlines everywhere because this isn’t the first time the Pine family has been thrust into the media spotlight. Matt’s older brother, Danny―currently serving a life sentence for the murder of his teenage girlfriend Charlotte―was the subject of a viral true crime documentary suggesting that Danny was wrongfully convicted. Though the country has rallied behind Danny, Matt holds a secret about his brother that he’s never told anyone: the night Charlotte was killed Matt saw something that makes him believe his brother is guilty of the crime.

When Matt returns to his small hometown to bury his parents and siblings, he’s faced with a hostile community that was villainized by the documentary, a frenzied media, and memories he’d hoped to leave behind forever. Now, as the deaths in Mexico appear increasingly suspicious and connected to Danny’s case, Matt must unearth the truth behind the crime that sent his brother to prison―putting his own life in peril―and forcing him to confront his every last fear.

Told through multiple points-of-view and alternating between past and present, Alex Finlay’s Every Last Fear is not only a page-turning thriller, it’s also a poignant story about a family managing heartbreak and tragedy, and living through a fame they never wanted.

Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia

A sweeping, masterful debut about a daughter’s fateful choice, a mother motivated by her own past, and a family legacy that begins in Cuba before either of them were born

In present-day Miami, Jeanette is battling addiction. Daughter of Carmen, a Cuban immigrant, she is determined to learn more about her family history from her reticent mother and makes the snap decision to take in the daughter of a neighbor detained by ICE. Carmen, still wrestling with the trauma of displacement, must process her difficult relationship with her own mother while trying to raise a wayward Jeanette. Steadfast in her quest for understanding, Jeanette travels to Cuba to see her grandmother and reckon with secrets from the past destined to erupt.

From 19th-century cigar factories to present-day detention centers, from Cuba to Mexico, Gabriela Garcia’s Of Women and Salt is a kaleidoscopic portrait of betrayals―personal and political, self-inflicted and those done by others―that have shaped the lives of these extraordinary women. A haunting meditation on the choices of mothers, the legacy of the memories they carry, and the tenacity of women who choose to tell their stories despite those who wish to silence them, this is more than a diaspora story; it is a story of America’s most tangled, honest, human roots.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Klara and the Sun is a magnificent new novel from the Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro—author of Never Let Me Go and the Booker Prize-winning The Remains of the Day.

Klara and the Sun, the first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, tells the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her.

Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love?

In its award citation in 2017, the Nobel committee described Ishiguro’s books as “novels of great emotional force” and said he has “uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.”

Blood Grove by Walter Mosley

“Master of craft and narrative” Walter Mosley returns with this crowning achievement in the Easy Rawlins saga, in which the iconic detective’s loyalties are tested on the sun-soaked streets of Southern California (National Book Foundation) 

It is 1969, and flames can be seen on the horizon, protest wafts like smoke though the thick air, and Easy Rawlins, the Black private detective whose small agency finally has its own office, gets a visit from a white Vietnam veteran. The young man comes to Easy with a story that makes little sense. He and his lover, a beautiful young woman, were attacked in a citrus grove at the city’s outskirts. He may have killed a man, and the woman and his dog are now missing. Inclined to turn down what sounds like nothing but trouble, Easy takes the case when he realizes how damaged the young vet is from his war experiences—the bond between veterans superseding all other considerations.

The veteran is not Easy’s only unlooked-for trouble. Easy’s adopted daughter Feather’s white uncle shows up uninvited, raising questions and unsettling the life Easy has long forged for the now young woman. Where Feather sees a family reunion, Easy suspects something else, something that will break his heart.

Blood Grove is a crackling, moody, and thrilling race through a California of hippies and tycoons, radicals and sociopaths, cops and grifters, both men and women. Easy will need the help of his friends—from the genius Jackson Blue to the dangerous Mouse Alexander, Fearless Jones, and Christmas Black—to make sense of a case that reveals the darkest impulses humans harbor. 

Blood Grove is a novel of vast scope and intimate insight, and a soulful call for justice by any means necessary.

The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The sequel to The Sympathizer, which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and went on to sell over a million copies worldwide, The Committed tells the story of “the man of two minds” as he comes as a refugee to France and turns his hand to capitalism.

The long-awaited follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sympathizer, which has sold more than one million copies worldwide, The Committed follows the man of two minds as he arrives in Paris in the early 1980s with his blood brother Bon. The pair try to overcome their pasts and ensure their futures by engaging in capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing.

Traumatized by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, Man, and struggling to assimilate into French culture, the Sympathizer finds Paris both seductive and disturbing. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals whom he meets at dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese “aunt,” he finds stimulation for his mind but also customers for his narcotic merchandise. But the new life he is making has perils he has not foreseen, whether the self-torture of addiction, the authoritarianism of a state locked in a colonial mindset, or the seeming paradox of how to reunite his two closest friends whose worldviews put them in absolute opposition. The Sympathizer will need all his wits, resourcefulness, and moral flexibility if he is to prevail.

Both highly suspenseful and existential, The Committed is a blistering portrayal of commitment and betrayal that will cement Viet Thanh Nguyen’s position in the firmament of American letters.

The Awakening by Nora Roberts

#1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts begins a new trilogy of adventure, romance, and magick in The Awakening.

In the realm of Talamh, a teenage warrior named Keegan emerges from a lake holding a sword―representing both power and the terrifying responsibility to protect the Fey. In another realm known as Philadelphia, a young woman has just discovered she possesses a treasure of her own…

When Breen Kelly was a girl, her father would tell her stories of magical places. Now she’s an anxious twentysomething mired in student debt and working a job she hates. But one day she stumbles upon a shocking discovery: her mother has been hiding an investment account in her name. It has been funded by her long-lost father―and it’s worth nearly four million dollars.

This newfound fortune would be life-changing for anyone. But little does Breen know that when she uses some of the money to journey to Ireland, it will unlock mysteries she couldn’t have imagined. Here, she will begin to understand why she kept seeing that silver-haired, elusive man, why she imagined his voice in her head saying Come home, Breen Siobhan. It’s time you came home. Why she dreamed of dragons. And where her true destiny lies―through a portal in Galway that takes her to a land of faeries and mermaids, to a man named Keegan, and to the courage in her own heart that will guide her through a powerful, dangerous destiny…

The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor

In a series debut for fans of Tana French and Kate Atkinson, set in Dublin and New York, homicide detective Maggie D’arcy finally tackles the case that changed the course of her life.

Twenty-three years ago, Maggie D’arcy’s family received a call from the Dublin police. Her cousin Erin has been missing for several days. Maggie herself spent weeks in Ireland, trying to track Erin’s movements, working beside the police. But it was to no avail: no trace of her was ever found.

The experience inspired Maggie to become a cop. Now, back on Long Island, more than 20 years have passed. Maggie is a detective and a divorced mother of a teenager. When the Gardaí call to say that Erin’s scarf has been found and another young woman has gone missing, Maggie returns to Ireland, awakening all the complicated feelings from the first trip. The despair and frustration of not knowing what happened to Erin. Her attraction to Erin’s coworker, now a professor, who never fully explained their relationship. And her determination to solve the case, once and for all.

A lyrical, deeply drawn portrait of a woman – and a country – over two decades – The Mountains Wild introduces a compelling new mystery series from a mesmerizing author.

Adult Nonfiction

Girlhood by Melissa Febos

A gripping set of stories about the forces that shape girls and the adults they become. A wise and brilliant guide to transforming the self and our society.

In her powerful new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them.

When her body began to change at eleven years old, Febos understood immediately that her meaning to other people had changed with it. By her teens, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. Over time, Febos increasingly questioned the stories she’d been told about herself and the habits and defenses she’d developed over years of trying to meet others’ expectations. The values she and so many other women had learned in girlhood did not prioritize their personal safety, happiness, or freedom, and she set out to reframe those values and beliefs.

Blending investigative reporting, memoir, and scholarship, Febos charts how she and others like her have reimagined relationships and made room for the anger, grief, power, and pleasure women have long been taught to deny.
Written with Febos’ characteristic precision, lyricism, and insight, Girlhood is a philosophical treatise, an anthem for women, and a searing study of the transitions into and away from girlhood, toward a chosen self.

We Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year by Charles Wheelan

Charlie Wheelan and his family do what others dream of: They take a year off to travel the world. This is their story.

What would happen if you quit your life for a year? In a pre-COVID-19 world, the Wheelan family decided to find out; leaving behind work, school, and even the family dogs to travel the world on a modest budget. Equal parts “how-to” and “how-not-to” – and with an eye toward a world emerging from a pandemic – We Came, We Saw, We Left is the insightful and often hilarious account of one family’s gap-year experiment.

Wheelan paints a picture of adventure and connectivity, juggling themes of local politics, global economics, and family dynamics while exploring answers to questions like: How do you sneak out of a Peruvian town that has been barricaded by the local army? And where can you get treatment for a flesh-eating bacteria your daughter picked up two continents ago? From Colombia to Cambodia, We Came, We Saw, We Left chronicles nine months across six continents with three teenagers. What could go wrong?

March 7, 2021

Except for those marked with an asterisk before the title, these books are in the system and ready to be checked out. Click on a title’s image to read its Goodreads review, and if you see something you’d like to check out, you can place a hold in the catalog or email the library.

Picture Books

A Friend for Henry by Jenn Bailey, illustrated by Mika Song

In Classroom Six, second left down the hall, Henry has been on the lookout for a friend. A friend who shares. A friend who listens. Maybe even a friend who likes things to stay the same and all in order, as Henry does. But on a day full of too close and too loud, when nothing seems to go right, will Henry ever find a friend—or will a friend find him? With insight and warmth, this heartfelt story from the perspective of a boy on the autism spectrum celebrates the everyday magic of friendship.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett, illustrated by Ron Barrett

The beloved, bestselling tale of edible weather is brought to life in this classic picture book!

If food dropped like rain from the sky, wouldn’t it be marvelous! Or would it? It could, after all, be messy. And you’d have no choice. What if you didn’t like what fell? Or what if too much came? Have you ever thought of what it might be like to be squashed flat by a pancake?

The Purple Puffy Coat by Maribeth Boelts, illustrated by Daniel Duncan

Beetle gives Stick Bug an attention-grabbing coat for his birthday—but is that what Stick Bug really wants? A delightful story about friends learning to understand each other.

It’s almost Stick Bug’s birthday, and his fashionable friend Beetle can’t wait to give him his present—a purple puffy coat! The coat draws a lot of attention and makes Stick Bug really stick out in the crowd. Beetle thinks that’s terrific! He brings Stick Bug all over town, happily boasting and bragging (while Stick Bug waits behind a tree, in a pile of leaves, or under a bench). Oh, dear—maybe Stick Bug isn’t as wild about the purple puffy coat as Beetle is! What can the two friends do? Charming illustrations bring to life both characters’ endearing struggles in this warm and humorous story about learning to pay attention to what makes your friend happy rather than what makes you happy.

Red Shoes by Karen English, illustrated by Ebony Glenn

Red shoes glowing–Perched on a pedestal in the shop window as if on a throne. “I want those, Nana,” Malika says, as they pass the shop. “We’ll see,” Nana says with a wink. “Looks like you could use a new pair.”

Malika is delighted when Nana surprises her with a beautiful new pair of red shoes! And with a click-clack-click and a swish, swish, swish, Malika wears her wonderful new shoes everywhere she goes. But one day, the shoes begin to pinch Malika’s toes. And alas, they don’t let her forget that her feet have grown! Soon Malika and Nana are off to the Rare Finds Resale Shop, where the shoes can be resold — so somebody else can enjoy them! Who will be the next to wear the red shoes? Malika wonders. Then Inna Ziya buys the shoes, and readers follow the shoes all the way across the world to Ghana in Africa, where Amina, another little girl, who has fasted her first time for Ramadan is about to get an amazing gift!

Karen English and Ebony Glenn have crafted a satisfying and heartwarming story about a pair of shoes, two girls, and a connection they share across continents.

The Story of the Little Mole Who Went in Search of Whodunit by Werner Holzwarth and Wolf Erlbrush

Since its first publication in 1993, The Story of the Little Mole Who Went in Search of Whodunit has been charming readers young and old with its unconditionally candid tale that raises bathroom humor to new heights. Splendidly straightforward and comic, it is at first unbelievable and then irresistible.

When Little Mole looks out of his hole one morning, PLOP! something lands on his head. Whodunit? In this irreverent, forthright mystery, Little Mole questions each of his neighbors, trying to find out whodunit on his head. In the end, with the help of some flies, Little Mole gets his revenge. Now a new generation of readers will enjoy this one-of-a-kind, stinky, and delightful story for the first time.

Big Red Lollipop by Rukhsana Khan, illustrated by Sophia Blackall

Rubina has been invited to her first birthday party, and her mother, Ami, insists that she bring her little sister along. Rubina is mortified, but she can’t convince Ami that you just don’t bring your younger sister to your friend’s party. So both girls go, and not only does Sana demand to win every game, but after the party she steals Rubina’s prized party favor, a red lollipop. What’s a fed-up big sister to do?

Rukhsana Khan’s clever story and Sophie Blackall’s irresistible illustrations make for a powerful combination in this fresh and surprising picture book.

If You Ever Want to Bring an Alligator to School, Don’t! by Elise Parsley

Note to self: If your teacher tells you to bring something from nature for show-and-tell, she does not want you to bring an alligator! But nothing will stop Magnolia, who’s determined to have the best show-and-tell of all–until her reptilian rapscallion starts getting her into some major trouble. Now it’s up to Magnolia to find a way to send this troublemaker home–but what could possibly scare an alligator away?

The Runaway No-Wheeler by Peter Stein, illustrated by Bob Staake

Trucks! Counting! Tire-eating aliens! This wonderful, rhyming, super-silly book has it ALL… including Bob Staake’s awesome artwork.

THE RUNAWAY NO-WHEELER is a clever spin on a counting book and the perennial favorite, a book starring trucks. Tony is a sturdy, long-hauling 18-wheeler with a delivery to make, but many obstacles are in the way — from potholes to slime to rescue missions to aliens’ space rockets. In the style of counting classics like Dr. Seuss’ Ten Apples Up on Top — though in this case, subtractive counting — Tony finds himself losing wheel after wheel with each hurdle he encounters. Will he be able to make his delivery?

A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead

Friends come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. In Amos McGee’s case, all sorts of species, too! Every day he spends a little bit of time with each of his friends at the zoo, running races with the tortoise, keeping the shy penguin company, and even reading bedtime stories to the owl. But when Amos is too sick to make it to the zoo, his animal friends decide it’s time they returned the favor.
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Lulu and the Hunger Monster by Erik Talkin, illustrated by Sheryl Murray

When Lulu’s mother’s van breaks down, money for food becomes tight and the Hunger Monster comes into their lives. Only visible to Lulu, Hunger Monster is a troublemaker who makes it hard for her to concentrate in school. How will Lulu help her mom and defeat the Monster when Lulu has promised never to speak the monster’s name to anyone?

This realistic—and hopeful—story of food insecurity builds awareness of the issue of childhood hunger, increases empathy for people who are food insecure, and demonstrates how anyone can help end hunger. Lulu and the Hunger Monster empowers children to destigmatize the issue of hunger before the feeling turns into shame.

The author combines years of experience fighting hunger as a food bank CEO with an MFA in writing for young children to craft an honest story of how poverty and food insecurity can affect adults and their children. Lulu’s story addresses the effects of hunger on learning and can be used in group settings to address social justice issues in an accessible and encouraging way.

Easy Readers

See the Cat: Three Stories about a Dog by David LaRochelle

Move over, Spot. . . . Spoofing classic primers, Max the Dog talks back to the book in a twist that will have fans of funny early readers howling.

See Max. Max is not a cat—Max is a dog. But much to Max’s dismay, the book keeps instructing readers to “see the cat.” How can Max get through to the book that he is a DOG? In a trio of stories for beginning readers, author David LaRochelle introduces the excitable Max, who lets the book know in irresistibly emphatic dialogue that the text is not to his liking. Illustrator Mike Wohnoutka hilariously depicts the pup’s reactions to the narrator and to the wacky cast of characters who upend Max’s—and readers’—expectations as the three stories build to an immensely satisfying conclusion. Hooray, Max, hooray! (Librarian’s note: This is one of the most enjoyable early readers I’ve seen in quite some time!)

Flubby Is Not a Good Pet by J. E. Morris

Flubby is a big, sleepy cat who refuses to do the things that other pets do. He won’t sing, catch, or even jump! But when a scary situation brings Flubby and his owner together, they realize they really do need each other–and that makes Flubby a good pet after all.

The charming illustrations, simple text, and comic-like panels by J. E. Morris, author-illustrator of the Maud the Koala books, make this a unique format with a narrative style perfect for storytime and progressing readers. Exciting, easy-to-read books are the stepping stone a young reader needs to bridge the gap between being a beginner and being fluent.

Call of the Sound Dragon by Tracey West

Drake needs to stop a dangerous wizard battle in this action-packed, bestselling series!

Pick a book. Grow a Reader! This series is part of Scholastic’s early chapter book line, Branches, aimed at newly independent readers. With easy-to-read text, high-interest content, fast-paced plots, and illustrations on every page, these books will boost reading confidence and stamina. Branches books help readers grow!

Magic from a wizards’ battle is destroying the city of Remus! To stop this dangerous duel, Drake and Petra team up with a Dragon Master named Tessa. Tessa, who is blind, has a very special connection with her Sound Dragon, Sono. Together, the Dragon Masters will need to find a Power Crystal! Can they save the city?

Junior Nonfiction

Your Place in the Universe by Jason Chin

Explore the known Universe and consider its mind-boggling scale in this crisply illustrated, well-researched picture book from Caldecott honoree Jason Chin.

Most eight-year-olds are about five times as tall as this book . . . but only half as tall as an ostrich, which is half as tall as a giraffe . . . twenty times smaller than a California Redwood! How do they compare to the tallest buildings? To Mt. Everest? To stars, galaxy clusters, and . . . the universe?

Jason Chin, the award-winning author and illustrator of Grand Canyon has once again found a way to make a complex subject–size, scale and almost unimaginable distance–accessible and understandable to readers of all ages. Meticulously researched and featuring the highly detailed artwork for which he is renowned, this is How Much is a Million for the new millennium, sure to be an immediate hit with kids looking for an engaging way to delve into perspective, astronomy, and astrophysics. Curious readers will love the extensive supplementary material included in the back of the back of the book.

Her Right Foot by Dave Eggers, illustrated by Shawn Harris

If you had to name a statue, any statue, odds are good you’d mention the Statue of Liberty. Have you seen her?

She’s in New York.
She’s holding a torch.
And she’s in mid-stride, moving forward.
But why?

In this fascinating and fun take on nonfiction for kids, Dave Eggers and Shawn Harris investigate a seemingly small trait of America’s most emblematic statue. What they find is about more than history, more than art. What they find in the Statue of Liberty’s right foot is the powerful message of acceptance that is essential of an entire country’s creation.

Code Your Own Games: 20 Games to Create with Scratch by Max Wainewright

With the key coding concepts explained in this book, now updated with Scratch Version 3.0, any kid can become a super-coder!

Learn how to code your very own computer games using Scratch software (a free, downloadable programming language). With easy-to-follow, illustrated step-by-step instructions, create all types of popular games from Snake and Brick Bouncer to driving and action games. Code Your Own Games introduces key coding concepts through simple and practical tasks – from drawing shapes and giving instructions in code to building games and much more! Each chapter progresses in difficulty, yet instructions and explanations are always easy to understand.

Junior Fiction

Maybe He Just Likes You by Barbara Dee

2019 The Washington Post Best Children’s Book of the Year (Erin Entrada Kelly Pick)
A 2020 ALA Notable Children’s Book

“The novel’s all-too-familiar scenario offers a springboard for discussion among middle schoolers…Easily grasped scenarios and short chapters help make this timely #MeToo story accessible to a wide audience.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Barbara Dee explores the subject of #MeToo for the middle grade audience in this heart-wrenching—and ultimately uplifting—novel about experiencing harassment and unwanted attention from classmates.

For seventh-grader Mila, it starts with some boys giving her an unwanted hug on the school blacktop. A few days later, at recess, one of the boys (and fellow trumpet player) Callum tells Mila it’s his birthday, and asks her for a “birthday hug.” He’s just being friendly, isn’t he? And how can she say no? But Callum’s hug lasts a few seconds too long, and feels…weird. According to her friend, Zara, Mila is being immature and overreacting. Doesn’t she know what flirting looks like?

But the boys don’t leave Mila alone. On the bus. In the halls. During band practice—the one place Mila could always escape.

It doesn’t feel like flirting—so what is it? Thanks to a chance meeting, Mila begins to find solace in a new place: karate class. Slowly, with the help of a fellow classmate, Mila learns how to stand her ground and how to respect others—and herself.

From the author of Everything I Know About You, Halfway Normal, and Star-Crossed comes this timely story of a middle school girl standing up and finding her voice.

The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, the Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz, illustrated by Hatem Aly

An exciting and hilarious medieval adventure from the bestselling author of A Tale Dark and Grimm. Beautifully illustrated throughout! 

1242. On a dark night, travelers from across France cross paths at an inn and begin to tell stories of three children. Their adventures take them on a chase through France: they are taken captive by knights, sit alongside a king, and save the land from a farting dragon. On the run to escape prejudice and persecution and save precious and holy texts from being burned, their quest drives them forward to a final showdown at Mont Saint-Michel, where all will come to question if these children can perform the miracles of saints.

Join William, an oblate on a mission from his monastery; Jacob, a Jewish boy who has fled his burning village; and Jeanne, a peasant girl who hides her prophetic visions. They are accompanied by Jeanne’s loyal greyhound, Gwenforte . . . recently brought back from the dead. Told in multiple voices, in a style reminiscent of The Canterbury Tales, our narrator collects their stories and the saga of these three unlikely allies begins to come together. 

Beloved bestselling author Adam Gidwitz makes his long awaited return with his first new world since his hilarious and critically acclaimed Grimm series. Featuring manuscript illuminations throughout by illustrator Hatem Aly and filled with Adam’s trademark style and humor, The Inquisitor’s Tale is bold storytelling that’s richly researched and adventure-packed.

When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller

Winner of the 2021 Newbery Medal 

Would you make a deal with a magical tiger? This uplifting story brings Korean folklore to life as a girl goes on a quest to unlock the power of stories and save her grandmother.

Some stories refuse to stay bottled up…

When Lily and her family move in with her sick grandmother, a magical tiger straight out of her halmoni’s Korean folktales arrives, prompting Lily to unravel a secret family history. Long, long ago, Halmoni stole something from the tigers. Now they want it back. And when one of the tigers approaches Lily with a deal–return what her grandmother stole in exchange for Halmoni’s health–Lily is tempted to agree. But deals with tigers are never what they seem! With the help of her sister and her new friend Ricky, Lily must find her voice…and the courage to face a tiger.

Tae Keller, the award-winning author of The Science of Breakable Things, shares a sparkling tale about the power of stories and the magic of family. Think Walk Two Moons meets Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

Tight by Torrey Maldonado

Bryan knows what’s tight for him–reading comics, drawing superheroes, and hanging out with no drama. But drama is every day where he’s from, and that gets him tight, wound up.

And now Bryan’s friend Mike pressures him with ideas of fun that are crazy risky. At first, it’s a rush following Mike, hopping turnstiles, subway surfing, and getting into all kinds of trouble. But Bryan never really feels right acting so wrong, and drama really isn’t him. So which way will he go, especially when his dad tells him it’s better to be hard and feared than liked?

But if there’s one thing Bryan’s gotten from his comic heroes, it’s that he has power–to stand up for what he feels . . .

Torrey Maldonado delivers a fast-paced, insightful, dynamic story capturing urban community life. Readers will connect with Bryan’s journey as he navigates a tough world with a heartfelt desire for a different life.

The Book of Boy by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

A young outcast is swept up into a thrilling and perilous medieval treasure hunt in this award-winning literary page-turner by acclaimed bestselling author Catherine Gilbert Murdock. The Book of Boy was awarded a Newbery Honor. “A treat from start to finish.”—Wall Street Journal

Boy has always been relegated to the outskirts of his small village. With a hump on his back, a mysterious past, and a tendency to talk to animals, he is often mocked by others in his town—until the arrival of a shadowy pilgrim named Secondus. Impressed with Boy’s climbing and jumping abilities, Secondus engages Boy as his servant, pulling him into an action-packed and suspenseful expedition across Europe to gather seven precious relics of Saint Peter.

Boy quickly realizes this journey is not an innocent one. They are stealing the relics and accumulating dangerous enemies in the process. But Boy is determined to see this pilgrimage through until the end—for what if St. Peter has the power to make him the same as the other boys?

This epic and engrossing quest story by Newbery Honor author Catherine Gilbert Murdock is for fans of Adam Gidwitz’s The Inquisitor’s Tale and Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, and for readers of all ages. Features a map and black-and-white art by Ian Schoenherr throughout.

Junior Graphic Novels

The Nameless City 3: The Divided Earth by Faith Erin Hicks

The Nameless City―held by the rogue Dao prince Erzi―is under siege by a coalition of Dao and Yisun forces who are determined to end the war for the Nameless City once and for all. And the people of the city―the “Named”―are caught in between.

Meanwhile, Rat and Kai must infiltrate Erzi’s palace and steal back the ancient and deadly formula for napatha, the ancient weapon of mass destruction Erzi has unearthed―before he can use it to destroy everything Rat and Kai hold dear!

In her third and final installment in the Nameless City trilogy, Faith Erin Hicks delivers a heart-thumping conclusion. With deft world-building, frantic battle scenes, and a gentle and moving friendship at its heart, the Nameless City has earned its place as one of the great fantasy series of our time.

When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed

A National Book Award Finalist, this remarkable graphic novel is about growing up in a refugee camp, as told by a former Somali refugee to the Newbery Honor-winning creator of Roller Girl.

Omar and his younger brother, Hassan, have spent most of their lives in Dadaab, a refugee camp in Kenya. Life is hard there: never enough food, achingly dull, and without access to the medical care Omar knows his nonverbal brother needs. So when Omar has the opportunity to go to school, he knows it might be a chance to change their future . . . but it would also mean leaving his brother, the only family member he has left, every day.

Heartbreak, hope, and gentle humor exist together in this graphic novel about a childhood spent waiting, and a young man who is able to create a sense of family and home in the most difficult of settings. It’s an intimate, important, unforgettable look at the day-to-day life of a refugee, as told to New York Times Bestselling author/artist Victoria Jamieson by Omar Mohamed, the Somali man who lived the story.

Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang

In his latest graphic novel, Dragon Hoops, New York Times bestselling author Gene Luen Yang turns the spotlight on his life, his family, and the high school where he teaches.

Gene understands stories―comic book stories, in particular. Big action. Bigger thrills. And the hero always wins.

But Gene doesn’t get sports. As a kid, his friends called him “Stick” and every basketball game he played ended in pain. He lost interest in basketball long ago, but at the high school where he now teaches, it’s all anyone can talk about. The men’s varsity team, the Dragons, is having a phenomenal season that’s been decades in the making. Each victory brings them closer to their ultimate goal: the California State Championships.

Once Gene gets to know these young all-stars, he realizes that their story is just as thrilling as anything he’s seen on a comic book page. He knows he has to follow this epic to its end. What he doesn’t know yet is that this season is not only going to change the Dragons’s lives, but his own life as well.

Young Adult Fiction

We Are Not Free by Traci Chee

A National Book Award Finalist

From New York Times best-selling and acclaimed author Traci Chee comes We Are Not Free, the collective account of a tight-knit group of young Nisei, second-generation Japanese American citizens, whose lives are irrevocably changed by the mass U.S. incarcerations of World War II.

Fourteen teens who have grown up together in Japantown, San Francisco. Fourteen teens who form a community and a family, as interconnected as they are conflicted. Fourteen teens whose lives are turned upside down when over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry are removed from their homes and forced into desolate incarceration camps.

In a world that seems determined to hate them, these young Nisei must rally together as racism and injustice threaten to pull them apart.

The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus

A Coretta Scott King Honor Book

Told in two distinct and irresistible voices, Junauda Petrus’s bold and lyrical debut is the story of two black girls from very different backgrounds finding love and happiness in a world that seems determined to deny them both.

Port of Spain, Trinidad. Sixteen-year-old Audre is despondent, having just found out she’s going to be sent to live in America with her father because her strictly religious mother caught her with her secret girlfriend, the pastor’s daughter. Audre’s grandmother Queenie (a former dancer who drives a white convertible Cadillac and who has a few secrets of her own) tries to reassure her granddaughter that she won’t lose her roots, not even in some place called Minneapolis. “America have dey spirits too, believe me,” she tells Audre.

Minneapolis, USA. Sixteen-year-old Mabel is lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out why she feels the way she feels–about her ex Terrell, about her girl Jada and that moment they had in the woods, and about the vague feeling of illness that’s plagued her all summer. Mabel’s reverie is cut short when her father announces that his best friend and his just-arrived-from-Trinidad daughter are coming for dinner.

Mabel quickly falls hard for Audre and is determined to take care of her as she tries to navigate an American high school. But their romance takes a turn when test results reveal exactly why Mabel has been feeling low-key sick all summer and suddenly it’s Audre who is caring for Mabel as she faces a deeply uncertain future.

Junauda Petrus’s debut brilliantly captures the distinctly lush and lyrical voices of Mabel and Audre as they conjure a love that is stronger than hatred, prison, and death and as vast as the blackness between the stars.

Adult Fiction

The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict

The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room returns with a thrilling reconstruction of one of the most notorious events in literary history: Agatha Christie’s mysterious 11-day disappearance in 1926.

In December 1926, Agatha Christie goes missing. Investigators find her empty car on the edge of a deep, gloomy pond, the only clues some tire tracks nearby and a fur coat left in the car—strange for a frigid night. Her World War I veteran husband and her daughter have no knowledge of her whereabouts, and England unleashes an unprecedented manhunt to find the up-and-coming mystery author. Eleven days later, she reappears, just as mysteriously as she disappeared, claiming amnesia and providing no explanations for her time away.

The puzzle of those missing eleven days has persisted. With her trademark historical fiction exploration into the shadows of the past, acclaimed author Marie Benedict brings us into the world of Agatha Christie, imagining why such a brilliant woman would find herself at the center of such murky historical mysteries.

What is real, and what is mystery? What role did her unfaithful husband play, and what was he not telling investigators?

Agatha Christie novels have withstood the test of time, due in no small part to Christie’s masterful storytelling and clever mind that may never be matched, but Agatha Christie’s untold history offers perhaps her greatest mystery of all.

A Private Cathedral (a Dave Robicheaux novel) by James Lee Burke

After finding himself caught up in one of Louisiana’s oldest and bloodiest family rivalries, Detective Dave Robicheaux must battle the most terrifying adversary he has ever encountered: a time-traveling superhuman assassin.

The Shondell and Balangie families are longtime enemies in the New Iberia criminal underworld and show each other no mercy. Yet their youngest heirs, Johnny Shondell and Isolde Balangie, rock and roll-musician teenagers with magical voices, have fallen in love and run away after Isolde was given as a sex slave to Johnny’s uncle.

As he seeks to uncover why, Detective Dave Robicheaux gets too close to both Isolde’s mother and the mistress of her father, a venomous New Orleans mafioso whose jealousy has no bounds. In retribution, he hires a mysterious assassin to go after Robicheaux and his longtime partner, Clete Purcel. This hitman is unlike any the “Bobbsey Twins from Homicide” have ever faced. He has the ability to induce horrifying hallucinations and travels on a menacing ghost ship that materializes without warning. In order to defeat him and rescue Johnny and Isolde, Robicheaux will have to overcome the demons that have tormented him throughout his adult life—alcoholism, specters from combat in Vietnam, and painful memories of women to whom he opened his heart only to see killed.

A Private Cathedral, James Lee Burke’s fortieth book, is his most powerful tale, one that will captivate readers—mixing crime, romance, mythology, horror, and science fiction to produce a thrilling story about the all-consuming, all-conquering power of love.

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

The highly anticipated sequel to the beloved worldwide bestseller Ready Player One, the near-future adventure that inspired the blockbuster Steven Spielberg film.

Days after winning OASIS founder James Halliday’s contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything. Hidden within Halliday’s vaults, waiting for his heir to find, lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the OASIS a thousand times more wondrous—and addictive—than even Wade dreamed possible.

With it comes a new riddle, and a new quest—a last Easter egg from Halliday, hinting at a mysterious prize. And an unexpected, impossibly powerful, and dangerous new rival awaits, one who’ll kill millions to get what he wants. Wade’s life and the future of the OASIS are again at stake, but this time the fate of humanity also hangs in the balance.

Lovingly nostalgic and wildly original as only Ernest Cline could conceive it, Ready Player Two takes us on another imaginative, fun, action-packed adventure through his beloved virtual universe, and jolts us thrillingly into the future once again.

Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardener

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner, a propulsive thriller featuring an ordinary woman who will stop at nothing to find the missing people that the rest of the world has forgotten

Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings. But she spends her life doing what no one else will–searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking.

A new case brings her to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation. She is searching for Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier. Resistance from the Boston PD and the victim’s wary family tells Frankie she’s on her own–and she soon learns she’s asking questions someone doesn’t want answered. But Frankie will stop at nothing to discover the truth, even if it means the next person to go missing could be her.

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them.

“My land tells its story if you listen. The story of our family.”

Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows.

By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive.

In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa―like so many of her neighbors―must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.

The Four Winds is a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it―the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.

The Prophets by Robert Jordan, Jr.

A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence.

Isaiah was Samuel’s and Samuel was Isaiah’s. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man—a fellow slave—seeks to gain favor by preaching the master’s gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel’s love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation’s harmony.

With a lyricism reminiscent of Toni Morrison, Robert Jones, Jr., fiercely summons the voices of slaver and enslaved alike, from Isaiah and Samuel to the calculating slave master to the long line of women that surround them, women who have carried the soul of the plantation on their shoulders. As tensions build and the weight of centuries—of ancestors and future generations to come—culminates in a climactic reckoning, The Prophets masterfully reveals the pain and suffering of inheritance, but is also shot through with hope, beauty, and truth, portraying the enormous, heroic power of love.

Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce

From the bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry comes an uplifting, irresistible novel about two women on a life-changing adventure, where they must risk everything, break all the rules, and discover their best selves—together.

She’s going too far to go it alone.

It is 1950. London is still reeling from World War II, and Margery Benson, a schoolteacher and spinster, is trying to get through life, surviving on scraps. One day, she reaches her breaking point, abandoning her job and small existence to set out on an expedition to the other side of the world in search of her childhood obsession: an insect that may or may not exist—the golden beetle of New Caledonia. When she advertises for an assistant to accompany her, the woman she ends up with is the last person she had in mind. Fun-loving Enid Pretty in her tight-fitting pink suit and pom-pom sandals seems to attract trouble wherever she goes. But together these two British women find themselves drawn into a cross-ocean adventure that exceeds all expectations and delivers something neither of them expected to find: the transformative power of friendship.

Perestroika in Paris: A Novel by Jane Smiley

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning and best-selling author: a captivating, brilliantly imaginative story of three extraordinary animals–and a young boy–whose lives intersect in Paris.

Paras, short for “Perestroika,” is a spirited racehorse at a racetrack west of Paris. One afternoon at dusk, she finds the door of her stall open and–she’s a curious filly–wanders all the way to the City of Light. She’s dazzled and often mystified by the sights, sounds, and smells around her, but she isn’t afraid.

Soon she meets an elegant dog, a German shorthaired pointer named Frida, who knows how to get by without attracting the attention of suspicious Parisians. Paras and Frida coexist for a time in the city’s lush green spaces, nourished by Frida’s strategic trips to the vegetable market. They keep company with two irrepressible ducks and an opinionated raven. But then Paras meets a human boy, Etienne, and discovers a new, otherworldly part of Paris: the ivy-walled house where the boy and his nearly-one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother live in seclusion.

As the cold weather nears, the unlikeliest of friendships bloom. But how long can a runaway horse stay undiscovered in Paris? How long can a boy keep her hidden and all to himself? Jane Smiley’s beguiling new novel is itself an adventure that celebrates curiosity, ingenuity, and the desire of all creatures for true love and freedom.

Adult Nonfiction

Home Learning Year by Year, Revised and Updated: How to Design a Creative and Comprehensive Homeschool Curriculum by Rebecca Rupp

A comprehensive guide to designing homeschool curriculum, from one of the country’s foremost homeschooling experts—now revised and updated!
 
Homeschooling can be a tremendous gift to your children—a personalized educational experience tailored to each kid’s interests, abilities, and learning styles. But what to teach, and when, and how? Especially for first-time homeschoolers, the prospect of tackling an annual curriculum can be daunting. In Home Learning Year by Year, Rebecca Rupp presents comprehensive plans from preschool through high school, covering integral subjects for each grade, with lists of topics commonly presented at each level, recommended resource and reading lists, and suggestions for creative alternative options and approaches. Included, along with all the educational basics, are techniques and resources for teaching everything from philosophy to engineering, as well as suggestions for dealing with such sensitive topics as sex education.
 
Now revised throughout with all-new updates featuring the most effective and up-to-date methods and reading guides to homeschool your child at all ages, Home Learning Year by Year continues to be the definitive book for the homeschooling parent.

Vermont Almanac: Stories From and For the Land

Anyone who lives and works in rural Vermont, or who has a deep sense of connection to this place, will appreciate this collection of stories, profiles, history, facts, tips, and just plain interesting information. At 288 pages, there’s a year’s worth of enjoyment inside. Volume I chronicles the past year in rural Vermont — its farms, its forests, its people — while recording weather and the climate, exploring nature, and looking back at the past while also looking ahead to the future.

As just a sampling, in this volume you’ll learn in detail about The Great Hemp Boom, a farmer with Italian roots who’s making old-world salami here, a world-wide seed company that calls Vermont home, composting on both commercial and community levels, making hay the modern way, and how to paint with foraged materials. You’ll read about a resilient dairy industry hard-hit by Covid and how vegetable farms adapted and even thrived during the pandemic. You’ll find out about Rat Birds and snapping turtles and little brown butterflies, not to mention insights on how to cook squirrel and a look at a Vermonter who’s selling bear grease. Ever wanted to keep sheep or get a hive of honeybees or make a balsam wreath? You’ll get tips for doing all of these things, along with guidance on sharpening a chainsaw, brush hogging a field, and much more. There are poems and works of art and essays, along with personal reflections. It all provides a very real look at the place we call home.

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January 30, 2021

We’ve received several new adult fiction and nonfiction books and a handful of new picture books. Click on a title’s image to read its Goodreads review, and if you see something you’d like to check out, you can place a hold in the catalog or email the library.

Picture Books

This Is My Home, This Is My School by Jonathan Bean

Drawing from his own childhood experiences, Jonathan Bean takes the autobiographically inspired family he introduced in Building Our House through the special rhythms and routines of a homeschooling day.

For young Jonathan and his sisters, Mom is the teacher and a whole lot more, and Dad is the best substitute any kid could want. From math, science, and field trips to recess, show-and-tell, and art, a school day with this intrepid, inventive family will seem both completely familiar and totally unique. Includes a selection of family snapshots and a note from the author.

The Dead Bird by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Christian Robinson

This New York Times Best Illustrated Book is a heartwarming classic from the author of Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny, with gorgeous new art by the multiple-award-winning artist of Last Stop on Market Street.

This classic picture book by beloved children’s book author Margaret Wise Brown is gorgeously reillustrated for a contemporary audience by the critically acclaimed, award-winning illustrator Christian Robinson.

One day, the children find a bird lying on its side with its eyes closed and no heartbeat. They are very sorry, so they decide to say good-bye. In the park, they dig a hole for the bird and cover it with warm sweet-ferns and flowers. Finally, they sing sweet songs to send the little bird on its way.

A beautiful book to share with children beginning to grapple with loss.

The Three Questions by Jon J. Muth

Young Nikolai is searching for the answers to his three questions:

When is the best time to do things?
Who is the most important one?
What is the right thing to do?

But it is his own response to a stranger’s cry for help that leads him directly to the answers he is looking for.

This profound and inspiring book is about compassion and being engaged in each moment.

With his stunning watercolors and text that resounds with universal truths, Jon J Muth has transformed a story by Leo Tolstoy into a timeless fable for readers of every age!

Crow and Weasel by Barry Lopez, illustrated by Tom Pohrt

Long ago, when people and animals spoke the same language, two young men left their tribe to make an adventurous voyage through the wilderness, into the unknown northland. Set in the mythic past and inspired by the traditions of the North American Plains people, this fable of self-discovery follows Crow and Weasel as they face unfamiliar perils on a quest for knowledge and wisdom. Conquering their innermost fears, the two heroes come of age and learn more than they ever could have imagined–about humanity’s relationship to the land, the importance of respecting other peoples and giving thanks, and even the very nature of friendship itself. 

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Adult Fiction

Daylight by David Baldacci

For many long years, Atlee Pine was tormented by uncertainty after her twin sister, Mercy, was abducted at the age of six and never seen again. Now, just as Atlee is pressured to end her investigation into Mercy’s disappearance, she finally gets her most promising breakthrough yet: the identity of her sister’s kidnapper, Ito Vincenzo.

With time running out, Atlee and her assistant Carol Blum race to Vincenzo’s last known location in Trenton, New Jersey — and unknowingly stumble straight into John Puller’s case, blowing his arrest during a drug ring investigation involving a military installation.

Stunningly, Pine and Puller’s joint investigation uncovers a connection between Vincenzo’s family and a breathtaking scheme that strikes at the very heart of global democracy. Peeling back the layers of deceit, lies and cover-ups, Atlee finally discovers the truth about what happened to Mercy. And that truth will shock Pine to her very core.

Writers & Lovers by Lily King

Following the breakout success of her critically acclaimed and award-winning novel Euphoria, Lily King returns with another instant New York Times bestseller: an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman.

Blindsided by her mother’s sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she’s been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey’s fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink.

Writers & Lovers follows Casey―a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist―in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King’s trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another.

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

In 1580’s England, during the Black Plague a young Latin tutor falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman in this “exceptional historical novel” (The New Yorker) and best-selling winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.

A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a tender and unforgettable re-imagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, and whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time, Hamnet is mesmerizing, seductive, impossible to put down—a magnificent leap forward from one of our most gifted novelists.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves
A female cop with her first big case
A brutal murder
Welcome to…
THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves The Thursday Murder Club.

When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case.

As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it’s too late?

Deadly Cross by James Patterson

The murder of a glamorous DC socialite becomes Alex Cross’s deadliest case since Along Came a Spider

Kay Willingham led a life as glamorous as it was public-she was a gorgeous Georgetown socialite, philanthropist, and the ex-wife of the vice president. So why was she parked in a Bentley convertible idling behind a DC private school, in the middle of the night, with the man who was the head of that school? Who shot them both, point blank, and why? The shocking double homicide is blazed across the internet, TV, newspapers — and across Alex Cross’s mind. Kay had been his patient once. And maybe more.

While John Sampson of DC Metro Police investigates the last movements of Christopher Randall, the educator killed along with Kay Willingham, detective Alex Cross and FBI special agent Ned Mahoney find unanswered questions from Willingham’s past, before she arrived in DC and became known in DC society as someone who could make things happen. They travel to Alabama to investigate Kay’s early years. There they find a world of trouble, corruption, and secrets, all of them closed to outsiders like Cross and Mahoney.

Kay had many enemies, but all of them seemed to need her alive. The harder the investigators push, the more resistance they find when they leave behind the polite law offices and doctors’ quarters of the state capital. Alex Cross will need to use all his skills as a doctor, a detective, and a family man to prevent that resistance from turning lethal…again.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

In the vein of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Life After Life, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is New York Times is bestselling author V. E. Schwab’s genre-defying tour de force.

A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget.

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever―and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

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Adult Nonfiction

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert).

Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings―asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass―offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

Nose Dive: A Field Guide to the World’s Smells by Harold McGee

The ultimate guide to the smells of the universe – the ambrosial to the malodorous, and everything in between – from the author of the acclaimed culinary guides On Food and Cooking and Keys to Good Cooking

From Harold McGee, James Beard Award-winning author and leading expert on the science of food and cooking, comes an extensive exploration of the long-overlooked world of smell. In Nose Dive, McGee takes us on a sensory adventure, from the sulfurous nascent earth more than four billion years ago, to the fruit-filled Tian Shan mountain range north of the Himalayas, to the keyboard of your laptop, where trace notes of phenol and formaldehyde escape between the keys. We’ll sniff the ordinary (wet pavement and cut grass) and the extraordinary (ambergris and truffles), the delightful (roses and vanilla) and the challenging (swamplands and durians). We’ll smell one another. We’ll smell ourselves.

Through it all, McGee familiarizes us with the actual bits of matter that we breathe in—the molecules that trigger our perceptions, that prompt the citrusy smells of coriander and beer and the medicinal smells of daffodils and sea urchins. And like everything in the physical world, molecules have histories. Many of the molecules that we smell every day existed long before any creature was around to smell them—before there was even a planet for those creatures to live on. Beginning with the origins of those molecules in interstellar space, McGee moves onward through the smells of our planet, the air and the oceans, the forest and the meadows and the city, all the way to the smells of incense, perfume, wine, and food.

Here is a story of the world, of every smell under our collective nose. A work of astounding scholarship and originality, Nose Dive distills the science behind the smells and translates it, as only McGee can, into an accessible and entertaining guide. Incorporating the latest insights of biology and chemistry, and interweaving them with personal observations, he reveals how our sense of smell has the power to expose invisible, intangible details of our material world and trigger in us feelings that are the very essence of being alive.

Humans by Brandon Stanton

Brandon Stanton’s new book, Humans―his most moving and compelling book to date―shows us the world.

Brandon Stanton created Humans of New York in 2010. What began as a photographic census of life in New York City, soon evolved into a storytelling phenomenon. A global audience of millions began following HONY daily. Over the next several years, Stanton broadened his lens to include people from across the world.

Traveling to more than forty countries, he conducted interviews across continents, borders, and language barriers. Humans is the definitive catalogue of these travels. The faces and locations will vary from page to page, but the stories will feel deeply familiar. Told with candor and intimacy, Humans will resonate with readers across the globe―providing a portrait of our shared experience.

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