Staff Picks

This book is a wonderful continuation of The Life We Bury. A topsy-turvy, twisty book; you won't know where it'll go right until the end. There are plenty of well-fleshed-out characters, storyline, and guessing to keep readers interested.

 

Publisher description: 

Cub reporter Joe Talbert, Jr. investigates the murder of a man with the same name as his in a small town in Minnesota, and discovers that the deceased was a loathsome lowlife who may be his father.

Find The Shadows We Hide in our online catalog. 

A personal, engaging book that seamlessly weaves together both fact and fiction. A window into the experience of a Muslim writer in America. This book encompasses so much, from the family dynamic with his parents, both doctors, the complications of faith, and not feeling as if you belong.

 

Publisher description:

A deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque novel, at its heart it is the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home.

 

Cat and her family move to a new town with a climate that is better for her little sister Maya's cystic fibrosis. Bahía de la Luna is damp and foggy, and Cat's new classmates are obsessed with ghosts. Maya wants to meet one, but all Cat can think about is her sister's fragile health. As Día de los Muertos draws near, Cat has some decisions to make about her new friends and her family. The illustrations are clear and eye catching and the plot sweeps you in immediately. This is not a spooky story, rather an examination of the unbreakable bonds that can continue long after death. A sweet and magical story.

 

Publisher Description:

Catrina and her family are moving to the coast of Northern California because her little sister, Maya, is sick. Cat isn't happy about leaving her friends for Bahía de la Luna, but Maya has cystic fibrosis and will benefit from the cool, salty air that blows in from the sea. As the girls explore their new home, a neighbor lets them in on a secret: There are ghosts in Bahía de la Luna. Maya is determined to meet one, but Cat wants nothing to do with them. As the time of year when ghosts reunite with their loved ones approaches, Cat must figure out how to put aside her fears for her sister's sake--and her own. 

 

Mo loves football, but he's the smallest player on the team. How can he help the team win? Kick off your next level of reading with this easy reader that has some longer words.

 

Publisher description: 

Mo is the youngest kid on the Robins football team. The kids on the rival team tease him for being a 'butterfingers' who's too tiny to catch the ball. But Mo's coach has a plan up his sleeve to turn Mo's little size into a big win for the Robins.

 

Love and Death love to play games, even though Love has never won. Romeo & Juliet, Antony & Cleopatra, Helen of Troy & Paris, and now Henry & Flora. She is an African American girl who dreams of being the next Amelia Earhart. He is an adoptive son to a wealthy family during the great depression. Can these two people who are so different really beat the Game of Love and Death?

 

Publisher description:

In Seattle in 1937 two seventeen-year-olds, Henry, who is white, and Flora, who is African-American, become the unwitting pawns in a game played by two immortal figures, Love and Death, where they must choose each other at the end, or one of them will die.

 

Brave New Home is a fascinating exploration into the history of housing in America that seeks to understand how single family homes became so popular. As well as being increasingly unattainable for entire generations of Americans, these cul-de-sac homes have significant social, economic, medical, and environmental costs that might be making us sicker and unhappier overall. As the nuclear family becomes less and less the norm for people in the 21st Century, Lind takes to the road to explore how housing is being reimagined to accommodate not just an idealized American Dream but how people actually live and what makes them happy.

 

Publisher description:

Over the past century, American demographics and social norms have shifted dramatically. If trends continue, we should expect to see more people living alone, later-in-life marriages, fewer (and smaller) new families, and a majority-minority population that skews older and older. Americans' daily life and preferences have also changed, whether by choice or by force, to become more virtual, more mobile, and less stable. But housing today largely looks the same as it did in 1950. In Brave New Home, Diana Lind shows why the government-subsidized suburbs full of single-family houses are bad for us and our planet, and details the new efforts underway that better reflect the way we live now, to ensure that the way we live next is both less lonely and more affordable. Lind takes readers into the homes and communities that are seeking alternatives to the American norm, from multi-generational living, in-law suites, and co-living to micro apartments, tiny houses, and new rural communities. Drawing on Lind's expertise and the stories of Americans caught in or forging their on paths outside of our cookie-cutter housing trap, Brave New Home offers a diagnosis of the current crisis in American housing and a radical re-imagining of the possibilities of housing.

 

In her psychological thriller, Paula Hawkins brings the protagonist, Rachel Watson, to the reader in an interesting way. Rachel, who is alcoholic and an unreliable narrator, is in a wild goose chase to find out the killer of her friend Meghan. But her vague memories and uncertain flashbacks drag her into serious trouble. Her careless and erratic actions lead to unnecessary and grave consequences. The introduction of characters in each other's role in the novel maintains suspense for readers.

 

Publisher Description:

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning, flashing past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stopping at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. Their life, as she sees it, is perfect...until she sees something shocking. It's only a minute until the train moves on, but now everything is changed. Rachel goes to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

Find The Girl on the Train in our online catalog.