Staff Picks - LibGuides at Boulder Public Library

Illan recommends Skuldugerry Pleasant by Derek Landy

04/30/2025

Boulder Library

teen fiction, religiously diverse, .Ilan's reviews

Skulduggery Pleasant is a story about a girl and a skeleton detective who solve mysteries together, after the death of her uncle. It takes place in Ireland and is filled with humor, action, and magic. The author is a brilliant writer, who excels at witty banter and fight scenes.

Publisher description:

Stephanie's uncle Gordon is a writer of horror fiction. But when he dies and leaves her his estate, Stephanie learns that while he may have written horror it certainly wasn't fiction. Pursued by evil forces, Stephanie finds help from an unusual source--the wisecracking skeleton of a dead sorcerer.

Find Skulduggery Pleasant in our online catalog

Claire recommends Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People by Tiya Miles

02/26/2025

Boulder Library

lived experiences, ability diverse, BIPOC, Black, multicultural, multiracial, religiously diverse, .Claire's reviews

A luminous and lyrical account of the life of Harriet Tubman. Night Flyer draws from spiritual biographies in the late 1800s, reflections on Tubman’s ecological awareness of the natural world and the imperfect sources we have from those who interviewed her in old age. The portrait that emerges attempts to grasp so many mysteries and complexities of Tubman’s life—from her faith, mysticism, and dreams, to her family relationships. A powerful and riveting read and a finalist for a NBCC Award.

Publisher's description:
From the National-Book-Award-winning author of All That She Carried, an intimate and revelatory reckoning with the myth and the truth behind an American everyone knows and few really understand. Harriet Tubman is, if surveys are to be trusted, one of the ten most famous Americans ever born, and soon to be the face of the twenty-dollar bill. Yet often she's a figure more out of myth than history, almost a comic-book superhero-the woman who, despite being barely five-feet tall, illiterate, and suffering from a brain injury, managed to escape from her own enslavement, return again and again to lead others North to freedom, speak out powerfully against slavery, and then become the first American woman in history to lead a military raid, freeing some 750 people without loss of life. You could almost say she's America's Robin Hood, a miraculous vision, often rightly celebrated but seldom understood. Tiya Miles's extraordinary Night Flyer changes all that. With her characteristic tenderness and imaginative genius, Miles explores beyond the stock historical grid to weave Tubman's life into the fabric of her world. She probes the ecological reality of Tubman's surroundings and examines her kinship with other enslaved women who similarly passed through a spiritual wilderness and recorded those travels in profound and moving memoirs. What emerges, uncannily, is a human being whose mysticism becomes the more palpable the more we understand it-a story that offers us powerful inspiration for our own time of troubles. Harriet Tubman traversed many boundaries, inner and outer. Now, thanks to Tiya Miles, she becomes an even clearer and sharper signal from the past, one that can help us to echolocate a more just and sustainable path.

Find Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People in our online catalog

Sarah M. recommends The Places in Between by Rory Stewart

12/11/2024

Boulder Library

adult nonfiction, Arab, multicultural, religiously diverse

Accompany Rory, a young American, as he goes by foot across Afghanistan in 2002. The reign of the Taliban has ended and the country is relatively quiet. Factions of citizens live in small, rural villages. The author writes about his interactions, conversations, and overnight stays during travel.

Publisher description:

In January 2002, Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan, surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night he slept on villagers' floors, shared their meals, and listened to their stories of the recent and ancient past. Along the way Stewart met heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers. He was also adopted by an unexpected companion-a retired fighting mastiff he named Babur in honor of Afghanistan's first Mughal emperor, in whose footsteps the pair was following. Through these encounters-by turns touching, confounding, surprising, and funny-Stewart makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance that shape life in the map's countless places in between.

Find The Places in Between in our online catalog

Juliana recommends When we flew away by Alice Hoffman

12/02/2024

Boulder Library

children's, historical fiction, juvenile fiction, religiously diverse, refugees, .Juliana's reviews

When We Flew Away is a touching historical fiction about Anne Frank's life before going into hiding. As someone who's read The Diary of a Young Girl, I found this book beautifully captures Anne's courage and wisdom beyond her years. Though aimed at young adults, it resonates with all ages.

Publisher's description:
Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl has captivated and inspired readers for decades. Published posthumously by her bereaved father, Anne's journal, written while she and her family were in hiding during World War II, has become one of the central texts of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust, as well as a work of literary genius. With the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the Frank family's life is turned inside out, blow by blow, restriction by restriction. Prejudice, loss, and terror run rampant, and Anne is forced to bear witness as ordinary people become monsters, and children and families are caught up in the inescapable tide of violence. In the midst of impossible danger, Anne, audacious and creative and fearless, discovers who she truly is. With a wisdom far beyond her years, she will become a writer who will go on to change the world as we know it.

Find When we flew away in our online catalog

Saoirse recommends The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi

11/08/2024

Boulder Library

history, lived experiences, equity, Arab, multicultural, multiracial, religiously diverse, refugees, .Saoirse's reviews

Palestinian historian Khalidi writes a nuanced and lived experience history that explores the historic and present experiences of Palestinians. It is fundamentally a critique of imperialism, Southwest Asian geopolitics, Israel, the United Sates, Western Europe, and Palestinian political leadership. I've wanted to know more about Palestine and Israel for a long time. Palestinian historian Khaldidi's account of 1917-2017 in the region is a deeply engaging and informed critique not often heard in the U.S. Most especially his experience of 1982 Israeli invasion of Beirut personalized this history. Highly recommend listening to on audiobook.

Publisher's description:
A landmark history of one hundred years of war waged against the Palestinians from the foremost US historian of the Middle East, told through pivotal events and family history In 1899, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, alarmed by the Zionist call to create a Jewish national home in Palestine, wrote a letter aimed at Theodore Herzl: the country had an indigenous people who would not easily accept their own displacement. He warned of the perils ahead, ending his note, “in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.” Thus Rashid Khalidi, al-Khalidi’s great-great-nephew, begins this sweeping history, the first general account of the conflict told from an explicitly Palestinian perspective. Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members—mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists—The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. He highlights the key episodes in this colonial campaign, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the destruction of Palestine in 1948, from Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon to the endless and futile peace process. Original, authoritative, and important, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine is not a chronicle of victimization, nor does it whitewash the mistakes of Palestinian leaders or deny the emergence of national movements on both sides. In reevaluating the forces arrayed against the Palestinians, it offers an illuminating new view of a conflict that continues to this day.

Find The Hundred Years' War on Palestine in our online catalog.

Syd recommends Return to Uluru by Mark McKenna

08/31/2024

Boulder Library

adult nonfiction, .Syd's reviews, BIPOC, religiously diverse

A multi-generational accounting of the murder of an aboriginal man in Australia's sacred heart by a white police officer in 1934. A clever mix of true crime, history, and reconciliation, Return to Uluru will leave you with a new understanding of the famous rock and the people who call it home.

Publisher's description:

Return to Uluru explores the cold case that strikes at the heart of Australia's white supremacy-the death of an Aboriginal man in 1934; the iconic life of a white, "outback" police officer; and the continent's most sacred and mysterious landmark.

Find Return to Uluru in our online catalog

Syd recommends The Nazis Knew My Name by Magda Hellinger

06/21/2024

Lara Hnizdo

adult nonfiction, biography, history, lived experiences, immigrants, .Syd's reviews, multicultural, religiously diverse, refugees

Forced into serving as a Jewish Blockälteste (block leader) in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Magda Hellinger would witness unimaginable cruelty and destruction. By using her new position of power in the camp she would also save thousands of innocent people from the Nazi ovens. A remarkable true story!

Publisher's description:

In March 1942, at the age of 25, kindergarten teacher Magda Hellinger was deported from her hometown in Slovakia along with 998 other young women. They were some of the first Jews to be sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Very few would survive the next three years until liberation. The SS soon discovered that by putting prisoners in day-to-day charge of the accommodation blocks and even the camps at large -- so called Blockalteste and Lageralteste respectively -- they could both reduce the number of guards required and use these "leaders" to deflect attention away from themselves. Magda was one such Jewish prisoner selected for leadership. Like many others during the war she found herself constantly treading a fine line: how to save lives-if only a few at a time-while avoiding being too "soft" and likely sent to the gas chambers. Through her own inner strength and ingenuity, she was able to rise above the horror and cruelty of the camps and build pivotal relationships with the women under her watch, and some of Auschwitz's most notorious Nazi senior officers. Based on Magda's own personal account and completed by her daughter's extensive research, this awe-inspiring story offers us incredible insight into human nature under the pressure to survive, the power of resilience, and the goodness that can shine through even in the most horrific of conditions.

Find The Nazis Knew My Name in our online catalog.

Juliana recommends The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

06/10/2024

Boulder Library

adult fiction, romance, magical realism, LGBTQIA+, religiously diverse, .Juliana's reviews

One of the coziest magical romances I've ever read, it pairs wonderfully with a cup of tea before bedtime! Mia, a member of a secret society of witches, receives a message about tutoring three secluded young witches. Little does she know, this invitation will completely transform her life!

Publisher’s description:

A warm and uplifting novel about an isolated witch whose opportunity to embrace a quirky new family-and a new love-changes the course of her life. As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don't mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she's used to being alone and she follows the rules...with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos "pretending" to be a witch. She thinks no one will take it seriously. But someone does. An unexpected message arrives, begging her to travel to the remote and mysterious Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to control their magic.

Find The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches in our online catalog.

Emma recommends The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jaku

05/25/2024

Boulder Library

adult nonfiction, lived experiences, multicultural, religiously diverse, .Emma's reviews

A true story that will bleed your heart dry and make room for more love than you thought you could hold. Eddie Jaku considers himself to be the happiest man on earth: a testament to human resilience that will leave you in awe after the utterly horrifying accounts of what he's been through.

Publisher's Description:

Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, a Jew second. He was proud of his country. But all of that changed on 9 November 1938, when he was beaten, arrested and taken to a concentration camp. Over the next seven years, Eddie faced unimaginable horrors every day, first in Buchenwald, then in Auschwitz, then on the Nazi death march. He lost family, friends, his country. Because he survived, Eddie made the vow to smile every day. He pays tribute to those who were lost by telling his story, sharing his wisdom and living his best possible life. He now believes he is the 'happiest man on earth".

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Juliana recommends Weyward by Emilia Hart

05/17/2024

Lara Hnizdo

adult fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, religiously diverse, .Juliana's reviews

There's something about stories featuring matriarchal witch clans that always pulls me in, and Weyward does it exceptionally well. Emilia Hart creates a spellbinding narrative in which magic and reality blend seamlessly. I couldn't put it down until I reached the very last page!

Publisher's recommendation:

2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century. 1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha's mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom. 1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives--and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

Find Weyward in our online catalog.