Staff Picks

I recently read this title in preparation for the library's queer teen club, Book Queeries. Although I was previously unfamiliar with the author, I learned that they've contributed to a few of my favorite comics/TV shows such as Steven Universe and Adventure Time. So hooking me was the easy part...

 

As the Crow Flies packs a lot of emotion into the art and dialogue of this short graphic novel. Charlie embarks on what is supposed to be an unforgettable multi-day hike full of stories of girl power and culminating in what sounds like a religious awakening. However, Charlie's group hike ends up being a painfully awkward slog through the mountains where she begins to question her relationship with God, who told her to go on this trip in the first place.

 

Although this trek wasn't what Charlie was hoping it would be, she makes friends with a hiker who needs her as much as she needs them. It does not take a religious reader to appreciate this story and perspective told from a queer teen's point of view—highly recommend this short read for teens and adults.

 

Publisher description: 

A queer, black teenager finds herself stranded in a dangerous and unfamiliar place: an all-white Christian youth backpacking camp.

Find As The Crow Flies in our online catalog.

Authored by Kristen Arnett, a queer writer based in Florida. I enjoyed this work of literary fiction in the way it made me think hard and left me feeling unsettled. It is raw and uncomfortable as Sammie's marriage is falling apart and her wife leaves her for a much younger woman. While Sammie never felt the warmth and bond of being a mother to her son, in his teenage years, he starts acting out and is uncontrollable in a way that makes her feel estranged. Sammie is grasping for something to hold onto as she confronts reality. I was hooked from the start and couldn't put it down and while it is not a feel-good, it is fascinating.

 

Publisher's description: If she's being honest, Sammie Lucas is scared of her son. Working from home in the close quarters of their Florida house, she lives with one wary eye peeled on Samson, a sullen, unknowable boy who resists her every attempt to bond with him. Uncertain in her own feelings about motherhood, she tries her best--driving, cleaning, cooking, prodding him to finish projects for school--while growing increasingly resentful of Monika, her confident but absent wife. As Samson grows from feral toddler to surly teenager, Sammie's life begins to deteriorate into a mess of unruly behavior, and her struggle to create a picture-perfect queer family unravels. When her son's hostility finally spills over into physical aggression, Sammie must confront her role in the mess--and the possibility that it will never be clean again.

Mog the cat belongs to the Thomas family. She forgets where her cat door is, she forgets that she only eats egg at dinnertime and her natural inquisitiveness mostly leads to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas proclaiming "Bother that cat". However, one evening her forgetfulness saves the day! Fifty years on since it was originally published, Judith Kerr's tale about Mog the cat still delightfully endures.

 

Publisher description:

Mog always seems to be in trouble for her forgetfulness...but one night, it comes in very handy!

 

Mary and the Trail of Tears recounts hard truths in a compelling story of resilience and strength in a loving Cherokee family. While many of us know the Trail of Tears involved a long and pain-staking forced removal of American Indians from their homes, often overlooked are the extended periods of native imprisonment in camps while the U.S. government faltered in plotting the route and logistics of the removal. The author, Andrea L. Rogers, is a citizen of the Cherokee nation, and she speaks her truth in an engaging and age-appropriate way. Kids aged 8 to 11 will find the story suspenseful and relatable as they share Mary's fear as well as her moments of fun and tenderness with her sisters.

 

Publisher description: 

It is June first and twelve-year-old Mary does not really understand what is happening: she does not understand the hatred and greed of the white men who are forcing her Cherokee family out of their home in New Echota, Georgia, capital of the Cherokee Nation, and trying to steal what few things they are allowed to take with them, she does not understand why a soldier killed her grandfather--and she certainly does not understand how she, her sister, and her mother, are going to survive the 1000 mile trip to the lands west of the Mississippi.

Find Mary and the Trail of Tears in our online catalog. 

There is a lonely stretch of road formally known as Highway 16 in British Columbia that connects the isolated communities of Prince Rupert and Prince George. However, it is better known as the "Highway of Tears" due to the staggering number of women and girls that have disappeared on it through the decades. A large majority are indigenous and therefore not considered to be high-priority cases by the Canadian government or police. McDiarmid winds the stories of the missing with the history of settler colonialism and racism that has resulted in the overwhelming indifference to the targeting of those most vulnerable. This is a heartbreaking but essential read that illustrates why indigenous women and girls experience high rates of violence and questions why we allow such torture to run rampant and unchecked.

 

Publisher's description:

For decades, Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been found murdered along an isolated stretch of highway in northwestern British Columbia. The corridor is known as the Highway of Tears, and it has come to symbolize a national crisis. Journalist Jessica McDiarmid meticulously investigates the devastating effect these tragedies have had on the families of the victims and their communities, and how systemic racism and indifference have created a climate in which Indigenous women and girls are overpoliced yet underprotected. McDiarmid interviews those closest to the victims and provides an intimate firsthand account of their loss and unflagging fight for justice. Examining the historically fraught social and cultural tensions between settlers and Indigenous peoples in the region, McDiarmid links these cases to others across Canada—now estimated to number up to four thousand—contextualizing them within a broader examination of the undervaluing of Indigenous lives in the country. Highway of Tears is a piercing exploration of our ongoing failure to provide justice for the victims and a testament to their families’ and communities’ unwavering determination to find it.

Great book for kids who would like to read in order to visually imagine the experience of snow. A beautifully simple and adventurous snow experience of a little boy that helps kids to imagine themselves being there.

 

Publisher description:

In this book sparkling with atmosphere, a small boy experiences the joys of a snowy day. The brief, vividly expressed text points out his new awareness.

 

I don't think I will ever be able to forget this book. It is so painfully intimate and stunning and heartbreaking. The author pieced together from historical sources the story of her distant relative who was involved in the German resistance to the rise of Hitler. The book in such a powerful way shows us how unbelievably fast Hitler rose and how unbelievably cruel the world became under him. There is the story of how hard it was for the people in the resistance to get the outside world to listen and to act. The bravery of the people doing any small part possible. The undermining and spies all around them. The world needs to understand what happened and how it could happen again. Truly an astonishing read.

 

Publisher description:

Historians identify Mildred Harnack as the only American in the leadership of the German resistance, yet her remarkable story has remained almost unknown until now. Harnack's great-great-niece Rebecca Donner draws on her extensive archival research in Germany, Russia, England, and the U.S. as well as newly uncovered documents in her family archive to produce this astonishing work of narrative nonfiction. Fusing elements of biography, real-life political thriller, and scholarly detective story, Donner brilliantly interweaves letters, diary entries, notes smuggled out of a Berlin prison, survivors' testimony, and a trove of declassified intelligence documents into a powerful, epic story, reconstructing the moral courage of an enigmatic woman nearly erased by history. 

 

An age-appropriate picture book that celebrates the diversity in our world.

 

Publisher's description:

Despite the differences between people around the world, there are similarities that join humanity together, such as pain, joy, and love.

 

This nonfiction psychology book by Daniel Kahneman outlines, better than anything I've ever read, the ways in which humans fool themselves and err when thinking. It's about how humans' two systems of thought--intuition and slow thinking--shape our judgment and decisions, and how we can effectively use both systems. Using principles of behavioral economics, Kahneman describes how we should think in order to avoid mistakes in situations when the stakes are high. Sometimes we think fast, and sometimes we think slow. This book is engaging and thought-provoking and I'd recommend it to anyone 13+. Or, I'd highly recommend the audiobook, narrated by Patrick Egan :) 

- Kylie, 10th grade teen volunteer

 

Publisher's description:

In this work the author, a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his seminal work in psychology that challenged the rational model of judgment and decision making, has brought together his many years of research and thinking in one book. He reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives, and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. This author's work has transformed cognitive psychology and launched the new fields of behavioral economics and happiness studies. In this book, he takes us on a tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think and the way we make choices.