Staff Picks

Although it is labeled Teen simply because it is told from the perspective a of a young Native American girl, it will be enjoyed very much by adults. I loved the character development, and the clear recognition of racial, sexual, and class discrimination during this time period and frankly that still exist today. It is a well represented and beautifully told story with good-natured humor and magical realism.

 

In the 1960's, an old Choctaw woman, Rose, finds it is time to share the story of her childhood in the late 1800's in the old Indian territory of pre-statehood Oklahoma. Decades earlier, the Nahullo (white) land-grabbers came and took over the territory, building upon it the town of Skullyville. In 1897, with the pervasive racial tensions building over the years, there came a final, horrific massacre at the New Hope academy for Girls, which left several young Choctaw girls killed in an all-consuming arson fire that only Rose and a few others survived.

 

Over the decades, the Nahullo and the Choctaw communities are forced to co-exist with a fragile and, unfortunately temporary detente. The bible-thumping, white townspeople and the people of the Choctaw nation, still practicing their spiritual traditions, both try to leave each other alone, even though they must co-mingle at times. After a despicable incident of clear, violent discrimination, the Choctaw find they have a ruthless, formidable enemy, putting them all in danger once again. Rose's grandfather, Amafo, the tribal elder, is attacked in public for being in the way of the local Sheriff, starting a whole new battle within the tribal community--fight back, accept, or stand against without violence, but with compassion and forgiveness. To the dismay of the braves who wish to fight, Amafo chooses forgiveness. But with a twist. The whole nation will need to stand behind him if he is to accomplish his goal. But the evil does not only reach them, it reaches into its own white community.

 

In this town, nefarious and truly awful characters seem to dominate, but there are some exceptional citizens who try in their own ways to overcome racial, sex, and class barriers and strive to do what is right. And this binds the two communities, white and Choctaw, unbeknownst to them, in the same battle.

 

A tightly woven mystery with a seriously flawed, smart and sassy narrator. The Tucson landscape is as much a character as the serial killers and rogue FBI agents who inhabit it.

 

Publisher description: 

Brigid Quinn's experiences in hunting sexual predators for the FBI have left her with memories she wishes she didn't have and lethal skills she hopes never to need again. Having been pushed into early retirement by events she thinks she's put firmly behind her, Brigid keeps telling herself she is settling down nicely in Tucson with a wonderful new husband, Carlo, and their dogs. But the past intervenes when a man named Floyd Lynch confesses to the worst unsolved case of Brigid's career--the disappearance and presumed murder of her young protegee, Jessica.

Find Rage Against the Dying in our online catalog.

Kids make fun of Molly Lou Melon because she is different than other children. She is small and clumsy, with a voice that sounds like a bullfrog being squeezed by a boa constrictor. Molly Lou Melon's grandmother tells her to stand tall. What would you do? Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon by Patty Lovell and David Catrow reinforces the message to be yourself, celebrate differences and to stand up for yourself. I wish all bullies responded to courage and kindness like in this book!

 

"You don't know me, but you've been inside me, and that's why we're here today." Thus began Chanel Miller's victim impact statement following the trial for Brock Turner, the Stanford swimmer who assaulted her after a frat party. In a poetic, introspective tone, Miller leads you through her fight to reestablish her identity, her mortifying experience testifying, and her rage at the ridiculous treatment she received, giving intimate insight into her trauma. If you have a chance, go watch one of her interviews so you can hear her gentle yet resilient tone--like a modern Audrey Hepburn, she is a true iron butterfly.

 

Publisher description:

She was known to the world as Emily Doe when she stunned millions with a letter. Brock Turner had been sentenced to just six months in county jail after he was found sexually assaulting her on Stanford's campus. Her victim impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed, where it instantly went viral--viewed by almost eleven million people within four days, it was translated globally and read on the floor of Congress; it inspired changes in California law and the recall of the judge in the case. Thousands wrote to say that she had given them the courage to share their own experiences of assault for the first time. Now she reclaims her identity to tell her story of trauma, transcendence, and the power of words. Entwining pain, resilience, and humor, this memoir will stand as a modern classic.

 

The Ten Thousand Things is a magical work, both glittering in its strangeness and warm in its familiarity. It is difficult to describe just what makes this book so wonderous. As I push toward a solid feeling, the text shimmers, shifts and becomes wisps of the tale: a magical garden island, the grandmother, a child repeating generational history, forbidden objects, a child who smashes expectations, a warning, a betrayal, death and ghosts, and more and more until we have the ten thousand things. This book is at once a lament and an ecstatic ode to nature and life. Praised by Sandra Cisneros and Cheryl Strayed, wildly different authors, who have both been touched by this sublime work.

 

Publisher description: 

In Wild, Cheryl Strayed writes of The Ten Thousand Things "Each of Dermoût's sentences came at me like a soft knowing dagger, depicting a far-off land that felt to me like the blood of all the places I used to love." And it's true, The Ten Thousand Things is at once novel of shimmering strangeness--and familiarity. It is the story of Felicia, who returns with her baby son from Holland to the Spice Islands of Indonesia, to the house and garden that were her birthplace, over which her powerful grandmother still presides. There Felicia finds herself wedded to an uncanny and dangerous world, full of mystery and violence, where objects tell tales, the dead come and go, and the past is as potent as the present. First published in Holland in 1955, Maria Dermoût's novel was immediately recognized as a magical work, like nothing else Dutch--or European--literature had seen before. The Ten Thousand Things is an entranced vision of a far-off place that is as convincingly real and intimate as it is exotic, a book that is at once a lament and an ecstatic ode to nature and life.

Find The Ten Thousand Things in our online catalog. 

Michiko Kakutani's Ex Libris is a love letter to libraries and the love of reading. Of the 100-plus books listed, I have read about thirty of them with many more on my to-read list. Ex Libris is a book to read cover to cover, a book to flip through, and a book to reread again and again.

 

Publisher description:

Pulitzer Prize-winning literary critic Michiko Kakutani shares 100 personal, thought-provoking essays about books that have mattered to her and that help illuminate the world we live in today--with beautiful illustrations throughout.

 

A thrilling, fast-paced read, with a perversely likable heroine and a dashing hero. Follow them as they are thrown together in desperate circumstances and must go on a journey to find the truth about themselves and their universe as they know it.

 

Publisher description:

t's a night like any other on board the Icarus. Then, catastrophe strikes: the massive luxury spaceliner is yanked out of hyperspace and plummets into the nearest planet. Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen survive. And they seem to be alone.  Lilac is the daughter of the richest man in the universe. Tarver comes from nothing, a young war hero who learned long ago that girls like Lilac are more trouble than they're worth. But with only each other to rely on, Lilac and Tarver must work together, making a tortuous journey across the eerie, deserted terrain to seek help. Then, against all odds, Lilac and Tarver find a strange blessing in the tragedy that has thrown them into each other's arms. Without the hope of a future together in their own world, they begin to wonder-would they be better off staying here forever?  Everything changes when they uncover the truth behind the chilling whispers that haunt their every step. Lilac and Tarver may find a way off this planet. But they won't be the same people who landed on it. The first in a sweeping science fiction trilogy,