Staff Picks

An all too plausible story of how being in the wrong place at the wrong time can lead to unwarranted incarceration--or revolution. "Revolution has always been in the hands of the young." -Huey Newton

 

Publisher Description: 

Marcus, aka "w1n5t0n," is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works--and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school's intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems. But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison, where they're mercilessly interrogated for days. When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state, where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself. Can one teenage hacker fight back against a government out of control? Maybe, but only if he's really careful . . . and very, very smart.

 

Find Little Brother in our online catalog.

 

Newman creates a whole new language that in turn creates a whole new world before the plot even begins--and it hits the ground running. Ambitious, complex, and rewarding. Stick with the difficult beginning and before you know it, you won't be able to put it down.

 

Publisher Description:

In the ruins of a future America, fifteen-year-old Ice Cream Star and her nomadic tribe live off of the detritus of a crumbled civilization. Theirs is a world of children; before reaching the age of twenty, they all die of a mysterious disease they call Posies--a plague that has killed for generations. There is no medicine, no treatment; only the mysterious rumor of a cure.

When her brother begins showing signs of the disease, Ice Cream Star sets off on a bold journey to find this cure. Led by a stranger, a captured prisoner named Pasha who becomes her devoted protector and friend, Ice Cream Star plunges into the unknown, risking her freedom and ultimately her life. Traveling hundreds of miles across treacherous, unfamiliar territory, she will experience love, heartbreak, cruelty, terror, and betrayal, fighting with her whole heart and soul to protect the only world she has ever known.

Find The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman.

When Hurston first found Cudjo Lewis and asked for his story, the man thrilled that someone would finally tell his story, or even hear his real name. Hurston provides her own impassioned commentary alongside a vivid portrait she paints of a man devastated but no longer enslaved. She writes in Cudjo's own words, immortalizing his dialect, and develops a sense of kinship with him that results in a rare instance where trauma is handled with care and empathy.

 

Publisher Description:

A major literary event: a never-before-published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God that brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade--abducted from Africa on the last "Black Cargo" ship to arrive in the United States.

 

This belongs in the same can't-be-missed category as Shel Silverstein, Roald Dahl, and Dr. Seuss. It became in instant classic in my house, and I am certain it will in yours too!

 

Publisher Description:

Harris's hilarious debut molds wit and wordplay, nonsense and oxymoron, and visual and verbal sleight-of-hand in masterful ways that make you look at the world in a whole new wonderfully upside-down way. With enthusiastic endorsements from bestselling luminaries such as Lemony Snicket, Judith Viorst, Andrea Beaty, and many others, this entirely unique collection offers a surprise around every corner. Adding to the fun: Lane Smith, bestselling creator of beloved hits like It's a Book and The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, has spectacularly illustrated this extraordinary collection with nearly one hundred pieces of appropriately absurd art. It's a mischievous match made in heaven!

 

Water horses, Capaill Uisce, emerge from the sea on the shores of Thisby every November. Water horses eat meat and are larger than their land dwelling, grass-eating cousins. Puck Connelly enters the Scorpio Races to win. Others race to survive. Careful what you wish for--what you want might not be what you need.

 

The characters feel like gruff, hardy, laconic New Englanders, surviving weather, meager resources, and each other. I enjoyed the dual-narration audiobook of The Scorpio Races, with the alternating points of view of Puck and Sean.

 

Stiefvater strikes the right balance and tone, with a well developed relationship between Puck and Sean. I want more of the minor characters, water horses, and the Scorpio Race. Sequel, please!

 

I've never read an author who writes with the same qualities as Moreno Garcia--her words have a sharp, brusque quality that is somehow also balanced with a dreamy unreality that leads to something altogether unique. This story follows young society lady Noemí as she leaves the hustle and bustle of Mexico City to find out what is going on in her cousin's strange new marriage. She finds herself in a small, crumbling town in the mountains, and grows increasingly trapped in the mysterious house High Place, where her cousin lives with her English husband. Noemí must wrestle with her warring desires as she tries to solve the mystery of the Doyle family--before she and her cousin are lost forever.

 

 

I like adventure stories. This one is about a girl in Nigeria who discovers she has special powers and finds herself and her friends who also have powers having to use them when there is a ritual killer on the loose. The sequel is also good, but it was a little scarier than the first one at points so maybe wait until you are older to read that one.

 

Publisher Description:

Twelve-year-old Sunny lives in Nigeria, but she was born American. Her features are African, but she's albino. She's a terrific athlete, but can't go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits in. And then she discovers something amazing--she is a "free agent" with latent magical power. Soon she's part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But will it be enough to help them when they are asked to catch a career criminal who knows magic too?

 

I am sorry that this book, written in 1983, is just as relevant today, 36 years and counting, as it was upon original publication. Russ explores multiple strategies that keep women's work and experience(s) out of the cannon of literature, though her insights can be applied widely, from art to science. This book can validate many women's experiences as artists/professionals, though it is not written solely for women. Russ opens up questions of what is considered a universal experience as well as the validity of the notion itself. It is a testament to the power of unconscious bias. Russ provokes the thought--what would our art/culture/society be like without that bias?--and she does it with style and humor.

 

Publisher Description:

Are women able to achieve anything they set their minds to? In How to Suppress Women's Writing, award-winning novelist and scholar Joanna Russ lays bare the subtle--and not so subtle--strategies that society uses to ignore, condemn, or belittle women who produce literature. As relevant today as when it was first published in 1983, this book has motivated generations of readers with its powerful feminist critique.

 

My entire family is in love with Callie Vee--from my 2-year-old and 7-year-old sons, to my 30-year-old chemist sister. Set in 1899 in Texas, this story shows you how far the world has come. A nice introduction to Darwin's theory of evolution and the scientific method.

 

Publisher Description:

Calpurnia Virginia Tate is eleven years old in 1899 when she wonders why the yellow grasshoppers in her Texas backyard are so much bigger than the green ones. With a little help from her notoriously cantankerous grandfather, an avid naturalist, she figures out that the green grasshoppers are easier to see against the yellow grass, so they are eaten before they can get any larger. As Callie explores the natural world around her, she develops a close relationship with her grandfather, navigates the dangers of living with six brothers, and comes up against just what it means to be a girl at the turn of the century.