Staff Picks

Henry Denton has been kidnapped by aliens again. One of many abductions for this teenage boy who cannot see what in the world makes him so special. The "sluggers" have no discernable features and do not speak or communicate in anyway a human would understand and perform unspeakable experiments before returning him to earth, sometimes days later, almost always without his clothing. But then they reveal to him that he is given the power to make a choice. In 144 days the world will end. But if he pushes a red button he can save the Earth. That's all well and good, except Henry isn't sure it should be saved.

 

Things in Henry's world are not so great. Still unable to cope with his boyfriend's suicide a year earlier, he cannot see much good in anything. Kids at school humiliate him, calling him "Space Boy" after he accidentally let slip that he had been abducted by aliens. He is tormented and abused by a "popular" boy who is hiding his homosexuality and is using Henry's vulnerable state to satisfy his own needs. At home, his brother, Charlie, who has always found horrible ways to torture Henry, has gotten his girlfriend pregnant and is the worst candidate for becoming a decent father. Their mother is a very talented chef but is languishing in a horrible job as a waitress trying to support the family and reeling from Charlie's announcement. She is also overwhelmed with taking care of her own mother who is gradually succumbing to Alzheimer's losing those most precious memories who make her who she is and is not safe to be left alone in the house.

 

But then his world is turned upside down by the arrival of Diego: a new student who is drop dead gorgeous and enigmatic and giving him far more attention than Henry believe he deserves. Things start to change in complicated and insightful ways. Henry discovers there might be some good out there but doesn't trust it. Everything he loves always is stripped away from him, but is there hope? Will things get better? Is wiping the slate clean by letting the Earth end maybe not the best thing for humanity? Truly creative storytelling, character development, and cynical dark humor dealing with issues of severe depression, bullying, loss, love, friendship and family.

 

This new uber-modern translation of the epic poem throws down the gauntlet from the first word: "Bro!" With that (there's a great story here, Headley is saying, listen up!), you'll plunge without regrets into the tale of the warrior Beowulf and his conquests of two monsters and a dragon, and understand at last why it is a classic. You'll see connections with our own modern epics (think of superhero movies and Hamilton). This is why we read works written so long ago. We are different from our ancient ancestors, and yet we are the same. I also appreciated how Headley's translation spotlights the women of the story, notably Grendel's vengeful mother. After Beowulf kills her son, Grendel's mother is "carried on a wave of wrath, crazed with sorrow,/ looking for someone to slay, someone to pay in pain/ for her heart's loss." She is just as violent as portrayed in the other two translations I read, but also relatable, especially to anyone who is a mother. More subtly, Headley also gives a feminist voice to the various queens pouring mead in the warriors' halls, and the princesses married off for political reasons, and, at the end, to a Geatish woman singing a lament, after the dragon (also, in Headley's version, female) is slain but so is a king. Times weren't easy for women then, and they knew it: "She tore her hair and screamed her horror/ at the hell that was to come: more of the same./ Reaping, raping, feasts of blood, iron fortunes/ marching across her country, claiming her body." But most of all, reading this was absorbing. Grab some mead or strong red wine, sit by the fire, and take this one in on a dark winter night.

 

Publisher description: 

A man seeks to prove himself a hero. A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. Nearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf―and fifty years after the translation that continues to torment high-school students around the world―there is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley, which brings to light elements that have never before been translated into English, recontextualizing the binary narrative of monsters and heroes into a tale in which the two categories often entwine, justice is rarely served, and dragons live among us.

Part fiction with a new adult main character, part riveting mystery, and part collection of short story erotica, I could not put this one down! Would love to see this turned into a movie, it's just so well-written. Highly recommend this short and enjoyable read.

 

Publisher description: 

Nikki lives in West London, where she tends bar at the local pub. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she's spent most of her twenty-odd years distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community, preferring a more independent life. When her father's death leaves the family financially strapped, Nikki, a law school dropout, impulsively takes a job teaching a 'creative writing' course at the community center in the beating heart of London's close-knit Punjabi community. Because of a miscommunication, the proper Sikh widows who show up are expecting to learn basic English literacy, not the art of short-story writing. When one of the widows finds a book of sexy stories in English and shares it with the class, Nikki realizes that beneath their white dupattas, her students have a wealth of fantasies and memories. Eager to liberate these modest women, she teaches them how to express their untold stories, unleashing creativity of the most unexpected, and exciting, kind.

 

Find Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows in our online catalog. 

I love making bread--and this book has the easiest, tastiest, most delicious recipes. I had to buy my own copy so I didn't get food all over this one.

 

Publisher description:

Alexandra Stafford grew up eating her mother's peasant bread at nearly every meal--the recipe for which was a closely-guarded family secret. When her blog, Alexandra's Kitchen, began to grow in popularity, readers started asking how to make the bread they'd heard so much about; the bread they had seen peeking into photos. Finally, Alexandra's mother relented, and the recipe went up on the internet. It has since inspired many who had deemed bread-baking an impossibility to give it a try, and their results have exceeded expectations. The secret is in its simplicity: the no-knead dough comes together in fewer than five minutes, rises in an hour, and after a second short rise, bakes in buttered bowls.

Find Bread, Toast, Crumbs in our online catalog.

 

 

Societal expectations for 12-year-old Callie in 1899 Texas clash with the realization of her growing desire to be a scientist. In a family with six brothers, Callie is the one who connects with her grandfather and the natural world in this heartwarming story that will make you wish for a sequel.

 

Publisher description: 

In central Texas in 1899, eleven-year-old Callie Vee Tate is instructed to be a lady by her mother, learns about love from the older three of her six brothers, and studies the natural world with her grandfather, the latter of which leads to an important discovery.

Find The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate in our online catalog. 

Rodney is a young boy who has never been outside the city, but he is restless in school and fascinated by the outdoors. When his class takes a trip to Yosemite, the illustrations really show how he connects with nature, and how he sees himself differently in relation to trees, ants, mountains, and sky. Majestic, indeed!

 

Publisher description:

A Black boy's transformative day out in nature, recommended by Social Justice Books and We Are Kid Lit Collective. Rodney is that kid who just can't sit still. He's inside, but he wants to be outside. Outside is where Rodney always wants to be. Between school and home, there is a park. He knows all about that park. It's that triangle-shaped place with the yellow grass and two benches where grown-ups sit around all day. Besides, his momma said to stay away from that park. When Rodney finally gets a chance to go to a real park, with plenty of room to run and climb and shout, and to just be himself, he will never be the same.

 

I am a long-time fan of Maggie O'Farrell's compelling story telling through her richly detailed writing. Hamnet is an entirely absorbing novel set in Stratford, England in the late 16th century. The story imagines the domestic life of William Shakespeare and his wife prior to losing their only son 11 year old Hamnet to bubonic plague.

 

Publisher description:

England, 1580. A young Latin tutor--penniless, bullied by a violent father--falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman--a wild creature who walks her family's estate with a falcon on her shoulder and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer. Agnes understands plants and potions better than she does people, but once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose gifts as a writer are just beginning to awaken when his beloved young son succumbs to bubonic plague.