Staff Picks

 

Publisher description:

Thirteen-year-old Russell Pruitt, abandoned by his mother, follows his father to dilapidated 1950s Marshfield, California where he is forced to fend for himself against a ring of malicious bullies.

 

Beautifully written despite its short page count--classic, deep, and rich fantasy. I fell in love with Coren, I wanted to hug Tam, and I wanted to be Sybel, with my powers, animals, and adoptive witch-mother that lives on the mountain with me. Highly recommend to classic fantasy fans--those who love Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, maybe even Harry Potter fans can appreciate this one.

 

Publisher Description:

Young Sybel, the heiress of powerful wizards, needs the company of no-one outside her gates. In her exquisite stone mansion, she is attended by exotic, magical beasts: Riddle-master Cyrin the boar; the treasure-starved dragon Gyld; Gules the Lyon, tawny master of the Southern Deserts; Ter, the fiercely vengeful falcon; Moriah, feline Lady of the Night. Sybel only lacks the exquisite and mysterious Liralen, which continues to elude her most powerful enchantments. But when a soldier bearing an infant arrives, Sybel discovers that the world of man and magic is full of both love and deceit, and the possibility of more power than she can possibly imagine.

 

Tosh and his grandmother bond over a special recipe and a story passed through generations. This is a beautiful book about the importance of family traditions, and especially of the stories that tell the history of families, communities, and our country.

 

Publisher description:

Tosh has spent many days in the kitchen with his grandmother, Honey, watching her bake cookies and listening to tales of their slave ancestors, so when Honey's memory starts to fail, Tosh is able to help with the cookies and more. Includes a recipe for tea cakes.

 

This sweet fantasy graphic novel will appeal to those who love magic and romance. The two main characters are authentic in their diversity, queer Chinese Americans, while also having the capacity of magic on their fingertips. There are romance, fights, and magical world building to entice any lover of fantasy and graphic novels.

 

Publisher description:

A story of love and demons, family and witchcraft. Nova Huang knows more about magic than your average teen witch. She works at her grandmothers' bookshop, where she helps them loan out spell books and investigate any supernatural occurrences in their New England town. One fateful night, she follows reports of a white wolf into the woods, and she comes across the unexpected: her childhood crush, Tam Lang, battling a horse demon in the woods. As a werewolf, Tam has been wandering from place to place for years, unable to call any town home. Pursued by dark forces eager to claim the magic of wolves and out of options, Tam turns to Nova for help. Their latent feelings are rekindled against the backdrop of witchcraft, untested magic, occult rituals, and family ties both new and old in this enchanting tale of self-discovery.

 

Donna Andrews is one of my favorite cozy mystery authors. Every year she writes a Christmas-based mystery. Owl Be Home For Christmas is centered around a scientific conference about owls taking place right before the holidays. Of course there are owls, of course there is a blizzard, of course there is a murder and, of course, Meg Langslow's large family lets the fun fly while solving the murder. This is a very relaxing, fast read to keep you cozy and laughing during the holidays. Some of her other Christmas reads are The Gift of the Magpie, Lark, the Herald Angels Sing, and Six Geese A-Slaying.

 

Publisher description:

It's a few days before Christmas, and Meg's grandfather is hosting a scientific conference on owls at the Caerphilly Inn. Most of the family are there, ... including Meg's grandmother Cordelia--invited by Grandfather in a rare gesture of peacemaking, to share her expertise on rehabilitating large birds, including owls. An unexpectedly severe snow storm traps the conference-goers in the hotel, and one of the visiting ornithologists is murdered. Even if Caerphilly is able to clear the roads in time, Chief Burke doesn't want the various suspects to scatter to half a dozen continents before he identifies the killer.

 

 

 

 

This wonderful account of snow and our human life with it was a breath of frosty air after a summer of fires here in Colorado. Those who need no convincing to love snow and cold and the culture that human beings have built around them and fear their loss on a warming planet will enjoy Whittell's stories and scientific explanations like we enjoy a conversation over cocoa with a kindred spirit. I also appreciated his optimism. He writes, "...Decent snowstorms at livable latitudes could be fading from history by the middle of this century. There is an alternative, though. There really is. See page 218." What's on page 218? Pick the book up to find out!

 

Publisher description:

Go on an extraordinary journey across centuries and continents to experience the wonders of snow; from the prehistoric humans that trekked and even skied across it tens of thousands of years ago to the multi-billion-dollar industry behind our moving, making, and playing with snow. Blending accessible writing with fascinating science, Giles Whittell explores how snow dictates where we live, provides us with drinking water, and has influenced countless works of art and more. Whittell also uncovers compelling mysteries of this miraculous substance, such as why avalanches happen, how snow saved a British prime minister's life, where the legend of the yeti comes from, and the terrifying truth behind the opening ceremony of the 1960 winter Olympics

 

A beautifully written fantasy inspired by the world of Mughal India. Mehr is the cloistered, illegitimate daughter of an imperial governor--a daughter with hidden power that puts her, and the world as she knows it, in grave danger.

 

Publisher description:

The Amrithi are outcasts; nomads descended from desert spirits, they are coveted and persecuted throughout the Empire for the power in their blood. Mehr is the illegitimate daughter of an imperial governor and an exiled Amrithi mother she can barely remember but whose face and magic she has inherited: she can manipulate the dreams of the gods to alter the shape of the world.

 

The Overstory deserves every award it has won and several others that have yet to be established. This character-driven epic, in which the characters include our more-than-human ancestors, will open your eyes to the magical place we call home. Far from being pedantic, this ode to trees and thus all life is so thrilling, it is difficult to put down. Like a traditional Chinese landscape painting, The Overstory puts humanity in right relations with the natural world. Or, as Powers writes, "This is not our world with trees in it. It's a world of trees, where humans have just arrived."

 

Publisher description:

Nine remarkable strangers are summoned in different ways by trees for an ultimate, brutal stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest.

 

Find The Overstory in our online catalog.