NEWSLETTER
DVDs:
Isaiah Wright has some growing up to do. A year out of high school with no plans for his future, Isaiah is challenged by his single mom and a successful businessman to start charting a better course for his life. Through the prayers of his mother and biblical discipleship from his new mentor, Isaiah begins to discover God’s purpose for his life is so much more than he could hope for or imagine.
The epic adventure follows the journey of a robot, Rozzum unit 7134, ‘Roz’ for short, that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must learn to adapt to the harsh surroundings, gradually building relationships with the animals on the island and becoming the adoptive parent of an orphaned gosling.
ADULT FICTION
Brooke Orr is on a mission to change her life and the world. Assisting an octogenarian billionaire in the quest to give away his vast fortune turns out to be deeply satisfying work, a noble life path. All you need to make the world a better place, it turns out, is the right ideals with the right amount of money. She and her billionaire make an uncommon pair: Brooke, 33, is a Black woman raised by a single mother in New York City; Asher Jaffee, 83, is a white business tycoon with an elaborate lifestyle. Each is exhilarated by the new friendship. Asher loves Brooke’s willingness to spar with him, and Brooke finds her proximity to Asher’s power intoxicating, even mind altering. As limits are increasingly pushed and unusual boundaries crossed, the line between need and want blurs dramatically.
Family secrets come to light as a young woman fights to save herself, and others, in a Nazi-run baby factory-a real-life Handmaid’s Tale-during World War II. In a sleepy German village, Allina Strauss’s life seems idyllic: she works at her uncle’s bookshop, makes strudel with her aunt, and spends weekends with her friends and fiancé. But it’s 1939, Adolf Hitler is Chancellor, and Allina’s family hides a terrifying secret-her birth mother was Jewish, making her a Mischling. One fateful night after losing everyone she loves, Allina is forced into service as a nurse at a state-run baby factory called Hochland Home. There, she becomes both witness and participant to the horrors of Heinrich Himmler’s ruthless eugenics program. The Sunflower House is a meticulously-researched debut historical novel that uncovers the notorious Lebensborn Program of Nazi Germany. Women of “pure” blood stayed in Lebensborn homes for the sole purpose of perpetuating the Aryan population, giving birth to thousands of babies who were adopted out to “good” Nazi families. Allina must keep her Jewish identity a secret in order to survive, but when she discovers the neglect occurring within the home, she’s determined not only to save herself, but also the children in her care. A tale of one woman’s determination to resist and survive, The Sunflower House is also a love story. When Allina meets Karl, a high-ranking SS officer with secrets of his own, the two must decide how much they are willing to share with each other-and how much they can stand to risk as they join forces to save as many children as they can. The threads of this poignant and heartrending novel weave a tale of loss and love, friendship and betrayal, and the secrets we bury in order to save ourselves.
A group of friends, who once saved their magical land together but haven’t spoken in 10 years, reunite to attend a royal wedding and end up on a new quest to defend the realm.
From the author of the critically acclaimed The Illness Lesson (“astoundingly original”–NYTBR), comes a page-turning and psychologically penetrating tale about the rules that govern women’s bodies and lives. In 1948, Irene Willard, who’s had five previous miscarriages in a quest to give her beloved husband the child he desperately desires and is now pregnant again, comes to an isolated house-cum-hospital in the Berkshires, run by a husband-and-wife team of doctors who are pioneering a cure for her condition. Warily, she enlists herself in the efforts of the Doctors Hall to “rectify the maternal environment,” both physical and psychological. In the meantime, she also discovers a long-forgotten walled garden on the spacious grounds, a place imbued with its own powers and pulls. As the doctors’ plans begin to crumble, Irene and her fellow patients make a desperate bid to harness the power of the garden for themselves–and must face the incalculable risks associated with such incalculable rewards. With shades of Shirley Jackson and Rosemary’s Baby, The Garden delves into the territory of motherhood, childbirth, the mysteries of the female body, and the ways it has always been controlled and corralled.
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible–for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time. She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts. Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how–and whether she believes–what she does next can change the future. An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house? Kaliane Bradley’s answer is a blazing, unforgettable testament to what we owe each other in a changing world.
Every word a president utters is weighed and examined, but none more so than when he is talking about Taiwan. That’s why it’s shocking that President Jack Ryan seems to imply that the US has no appetite for a war to protect Taiwan from the communist Chinese on the mainland. President Ryan is determined to protect the independence of the island nation, but he is determined that one slip of the tongue should not cost thousands of young soldiers, sailors and Marines their lives. Jack Ryan returns in a blockbuster novel of action, thrills and intrigue in the world created by master storyteller Tom Clancy.
The SS Arcadia vanished during a routine voyage. A strange, garbled emergency message was broadcast, but no trace of the ship, or of its crew, could be found. Sixty years later, its wreck has finally been discovered more than three hundred miles from its intended course. A small team are granted permission to dive to it. Their purpose is straightforward: explore the wreck, film everything, and, if possible, uncover how and why the supposedly unsinkable ship vanished. But the Arcadia has not yet had its fill of death, and the submerged halls hold more than simple mysteries. Trapped hundreds of feet beneath the surface, the dive team must fight for their lives in a place where even the smallest mistake turns deadly.
COATES-THE HAUNTING OF LEIGH HARKER
Leigh Harker is certain her house is haunted. Curtains open by themselves. Radios turn off and on. And a dark figure looms outside her bedroom door at night, watching her…waiting for her to finally let down her guard and fall asleep. Despite appearances, despite all logic, Leigh knows she’s no longer alone. Pushed to her limits but unwilling to abandon her beloved home, Leigh’s determined to find answers. But the more she digs, the more she begins to suspect that her house is keeping troubling secrets…and some of them could be deadly
Twenty-three-year-old Michael ‘Mitt’ Fuller starts his surgical residency with great anticipation at the nearly three-hundred-year-old, iconic Bellevue Hospital, following in the footsteps of four previous, celebrated Fuller generations. The pressure is on for this newly minted doctor, and to his advantage he’s always had a secret sixth sense, a sensitivity to the nonphysical. But quickly one patient after another assigned to his care begin to die from mysterious causes. As he tries to juggle these inexplicable deaths with the demands of being a first-year resident, things rapidly spiral out of control. Visions begin to plague Mitt–visions of a little girl in a bloodstained dress, bloodcurdling screams in the distance, and worse. As bodies mount and Mitt’s stress level rises, he finds himself drawn to the monumental, abandoned Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital building, which to his astonishment has somehow defied the wrecking-ball and still stands a few doors north of the modern Bellevue Hospital high-rise. Forcing an unauthorized entry into this storied but foreboding structure, Mitt discovers he’s more closely tied to the sins of the past than he ever thought possible.
Summoned to an unnerving, abandoned theme park to retrieve a body, Dr. Kay Scarpetta is devastated to learn that the victim is a man she once loved. While teaching in Rome during the early days of her career, Scarpetta had an intense love affair with Sal Giordano that led to a lifelong friendship. The murder scene is bizarre, with a crop circle of petals around the body, and Giordano’s skin is strangely red. Scarpetta’s niece Lucy believes he was dropped from an unidentified flying craft. Scarpetta knows an autopsy can reveal the dead’s secrets, but she is shocked to find her friend seems to have deliberately left her a clue. As the investigators are torn between suspicions of otherworldly forces, and of Giordano himself, Scarpetta detects an explanation closer to home that, in her mind, is far more evil.
A woman discovers that not all monsters are her enemy-the opposite, in fact-in this new paranormal romance by Lana Ferguson, author of The Fake Mate. Keyanna “Key” MacKay is used to secrets. Raised by a single father who never divulged his past, it’s only after his death that she finds herself thrust into the world he’d always refused to speak of. With just a childhood bedtime story about a monster that saved her father’s life and the name of her estranged grandmother to go off of, Key has no idea what she’ll find in Scotland. But repeating her father’s mistakes and being rescued by a gorgeous, angry Scotsman-who thinks she’s an idiot-is definitely the last thing she expects. Lachlan Greer has his own secrets to keep, especially from the bonnie lass he pulls to safety from the slippery shore-a lass with captivating eyes and the last name he’s been taught not to trust. He’s looking for answers as well, and Key’s presence on the grounds they both now occupy presents a real problem. It’s even more troublesome when he gets a front row seat to the lukewarm welcome Key receives from her family; the strange powers she begins to develop; and the fierce determination she brings to every obstacle in her path. Things he shouldn’t care about, and someone he definitely doesn’t find wildly attractive. When their secrets collide, it becomes clear that Lachlan could hold the answers Keyanna is after-and that she might also be the key to uncovering his. Up against time, mystery, and a centuries old curse, they’ll quicklydiscover that magic might not only be in fairy tales, and that love can be a real loch-mess
Years have passed since an attempted assault and an accidental death forever changed the lives of Bethanne Hostetler and Jay Raber.When an unexpected turn of events gives them an opportunity to makepeace with the past, they’ll have to make it through yet another dangerous situation before the healing can begin.
When arson investigator Bri Tucker inherits unfinished business from her predecessor, she must convince ATF Special Agent Marc Davis to help her find the missing link and track down a serial arsonist who will stop at nothing, including murder, to carry out a nefarious plan.
As the sole witness to a murder, Lindsey Barnes is already on edge. Now she’s being targeted by someone who wants to discredit her testimony. Or is she? Police detective Jack Tucker must determine if it’s true, and if so, who’s behind the campaign to destroy her credibility–and perhaps her life.
KIM-UNDER THE OAK TREE: THE NOVEL: VOLUME 1
Lady Maximilian is the daughter of the powerful Duke Croyso, but she is rarely allowed outside her family’s sprawling castle for fear that her stutter will tarnish their noble name. When she is forced to marry Sir Riftan, a lowborn knight caught in one of her father’s schemes, Maxi doesn’t dare hope for happiness, let alone love. Her stumbling communication and his gruff manner sour their relationship before it can begin, and Riftan leaves without a word the morning after their vows are exchanged. Now, three years after their disastrous wedding night, Riftan has returned as a war hero. To Maxi’s surprise, despite rumors that he was offered marriage to Princess Agnes, a beautiful and renowned sorceress, Riftan still wants Maxi for his wife. And when he comes to claim her, his longing becomes a desire that bewilders Maxi, even as she is overcome by the scorching heat that Riftan’s presence ignites within her. As she learns to navigate the intricacies of her new life, Maxi will find herself and her courage, and discover that she is anything but powerless.
KLASSEN-THE SEASIDE HOMECOMING
Claire Summers replies to an advertisement to help run a Sidmouth boarding house, but her handsome, secretive business partner might send her packing if he learns her genteel façade hides a less-than-respectable past. And will a hoped-for reunion with her family lead to reconciliation or leave her estranged forever?
A night spent sleeping on dirt and leaves is not how Claire Matchett expected to spend her vacation. She thought this would be a break from the stresses of work and raising her young children. A chance to repair her damaged marriage. A week of hiking and hot tubs with friends. It sounded like heaven. Then Claire’s minivan breaks down on a lonely dirt road. With no cell reception, the group has no choice but to hike the rest of the way to their hotel. But it turns out the woods aren’t as easy to navigate as they thought. Hours later, they are lost. Hopelessly lost. And as they navigate deeper into the woods, the members of their party are struck down mysteriously one by one. Has a wild animal been hunting them? Or is the hunter one of them? But as more time passes, one thing becomes clear: only one of them will return home alive.
A man lunges in front of a car. An elderly woman silently drowns herself. A corpse sits up in its coffin and speaks. On this reservation, not all is what it seems, in this new spine-chilling mythological horror from the author of Sisters of the Lost Nation. All Noemi Broussard wanted was a fresh start. With a new boyfriend who actually treats her right and a plan to move from the reservation she grew up on–just like her beloved Uncle Louie before her–things are finally looking up for Noemi. Until the news of her boyfriend’s apparent suicide brings her world crumbling down. But the facts about Roddy’s death just don’t add up, and Noemi isn’t the only one who suspects that something menacing might be lurking within their tribal lands. After over a decade away, Uncle Louie has returned to the reservation, bringing with him a past full of secrets, horror, and what might be the key to determining Roddy’s true cause of death. Together, Noemi and Louie set out to find answers…but as they get closer to the truth, Noemi begins to question whether it might be best for some secrets to remain buried.
An attorney and mother of two discovers her husband’s secret life-and it might cost them all their lives. Everyone in Hemingway Grove, Illinois, knows David and Marcie Bowers. David owns the local pub. Marcie is a former big-city lawyer who practices family law. When David jumps into Cotton River to save a drowning stranger, he’s celebrated as a hero. His muscled physique, shaved head, and piercing blue eyes are broadcast on every news outlet. For most people, newfound fame is a lifeline. For David Bowers, it’s a death sentence. For Marcie Bowers, it’s a test. A wife knows the difference between a loving husband and father and a cold-blooded assassin. Right?
Two teens appear out of nowhere, ransacking a small-town grocery and attacking the police officers who come to investigate. Their clothes are torn and filthy, their hands and bare feet callused, they have fangs. They’re sister and brother, alone against the world. Where did they come from? Raised by wolves, they say. Kai and Holo are taken in by the police chief and his wife, and begin adjusting to life in a small town, attending school and going on dates. But humans, they find, are the most vicious animals. And the mystery of their upbringing brings dark and powerful forces to Kokanee Creek, tearing the town apart and threatening the lives of everyone they love.
PEARSON-THE COURTING OF BRISTOL KEATS
After losing both their parents, Bristol Keats and her sisters struggle to stay afloat in their small, quiet town of Bowskeep. When Bristol begins to receive letters from an “aunt” she’s never heard of who promises she can help, she reluctantly agrees to meet and discovers that everything she thought she knew about her family is a lie. Even her father might still be alive, not killed but kidnapped by terrifying creatures to a whole other realm-the one he is from. Desperate to save her father and find the truth, Bristol journeys to a land of gods and fae and monsters. Pulled into a dangerous world of magic and intrigue, she makes a deadly bargain with the fae king, Tyghan. But what she doesn’t know is that he’s the one who drove her parents to live a life on the run. And he is just as determined as she is to find her father-dead or alive.
Rose Barclay is a nine-year-old girl who witnessed the possible murder of her nanny — in the midst of her parent’s bitter divorce — and immediately stopped speaking. Stella Hudson is a best interest attorney, appointed to serve as counsel for children in custody cases. She never accepts clients under thirteen due to her own traumatic childhood, but Stella’s mentor, a revered judge, believes Stella is the only one who can help. From the moment Stella passes through the iron security gate and steps into the gilded, historic DC home of the Barclays, she realizes the case is even more twisted, and the Barclay family far more troubled, than she feared. And there’s something eerie about the house itself: It’s a plastic house, with not a single bit of glass to be found. As Stella comes closer to uncovering the secrets the Barclays are desperate to hide, danger wraps around her like a shroud, and her past and present are set on a collision course in ways she never expected. Everyone is a suspect in the nanny’s murder. The mother, the father, the grandmother, the nanny’s boyfriend. Even Rose. Is the person Stella’s supposed to protect the one she may need protection from?
SALAZAR-THE LIES WE LEVE BEHIND
Somewhere in the Pacific, 1943. Kate Campbell is a nurse who bravely flies back and forth from the front to rescue wounded soldiers, amid long days, harsh conditions and often dangerous weather. Driven by a deep personal need to help in the war effort, she is disappointed when an accident leaves her injured and sends her home to New York. By the time she’s healed, the war has moved on, and rather than being returned to her post in the Pacific, Kate is sent to the English countryside. There, Kate comes face-to-face with the enemy and confronts the heavy toll of violence while tending to the soldiers in her care. She never intended to fall in love, but despite herself, she falls for an officer with a broken femur, startling blue eyes and a wicked sense of humor. For the first time, Kate sees a future for herself. But before she can pursue it, a secret from her past calls her to duty, and she’ll have to travel back into danger one more time to rescue a part of herself she’d left behind. But will she make it back? And if she does, will her future still be waiting for her if she does?
First glimpsed riding on the back of a boy’s motorcycle, fourteen-year-old Czeslawa comes to life in this mesmerizing novel by Lily Tuck, who imagines her upbringing in a small Polish village before her world imploded in late 1942. Stripped of her modest belongings, shorn, and tattooed number 26947 on arriving at Auschwitz, Czeslawa is then photographed. Three months later, she is dead. How did this happen to an ordinary Polish citizen? This is the question that Tuck grapples with in this haunting novel, which frames Czeslawa’s story within the epic tragedy of six million Poles who perished during the German occupation. A decade prior to writing The Rest Is Memory, Tuck read an obituary of the photographer Wilhelm Brasse, who took more than 40,000 pictures of the Auschwitz prisoners. Included were three of Czeslawa Kwoka, a Catholic girl from rural southeastern Poland. Tuck cut out the photos and kept them, determined to learn more about Czeslawa, but she was only able to glean the barest facts: the village she came from, the transport she was on, that she was accompanied by her mother and her neighbors, her tattoo number, and the date of her death. From this scant evidence, Tuck’s novel becomes a remarkable kaleidoscopic feat of imagination, something only our greatest novelists can do.
Keru and Nate first meet in college, brought together by a joke at a Halloween party (would a ‘great white’ costume mean dressing like a shark or a privileged Ivy League student?) and marrying a few years later. Misfits in their own families, they find in each other a feeling of home. Keru is the only child of strict, well-educated Chinese immigrant parents who hold her to impossible standards even as an adult (‘To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,’ says her father). Nate is from a rural, white, working class family that has never trusted his intellectual ambitions or–now–the citizenship status of his ‘foreign’ wife. Nevertheless, some years into their marriage, Keru and Nate find themselves incorporating their families into two carefully planned vacations.
YUZUKI-BUTTER: A NOVEL OF FOOD AND MURDER
The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story. There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine. Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Center convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back. Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought? Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, “The Konkatsu Killer,” Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.
ADULT NON-FIC:
BALASCIO-RAISED BY A SERIAL KILLER: DISCOVERING THE TRUTH ABOUT MY FATHER
One evening in 2009, April Balascio was searching online, as she had been every night, for unsolved murders in the towns her family had lived growing up, when she stumbled across the latest investigations into the “Sweetheart Murders” cold case. All at once, the buried memories of her father’s dark history were awakened, and she knew she had to take action. She picked up the phone to call a detective and the rest is infamous true crime history. In her unflinching memoir, Balascio bravely reveals an astonishing tale of a lifetime of manipulation, unexplained upheavals, and silent fear. Some part of her had always known what her father was capable of, but the full truth of how she came to these revelations is as riveting as it is quietly terrifying. Through searing storytelling, dedicated research, and intimate insight, Raised by a Serial Killer is a gripping, courageous memoir unlike any other
In more than sixty new poems, Billy Collins writes with joy and wonder about the beauty and irony of daily life. The best poetry, he believes, begins with clarity and ends in mystery, and in Water, Water we encounter a writer endlessly astonished by the world all around. Turning his eye to the cat drinking from the swimming pool or the nurse calling your name in the waiting room or the astronaut reading Emily Dickinson while orbiting earth, Collins captures images and moments that mean so much more than they might initially seem. With a voice both simple and melodic, hospitable and lyrical, the poetry of Billy Collins asks each of us to slow down and notice the commonplace in order to discover the sublime. No wonder The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both call him one of America’s favorite poets.
DAUGHERTY-INVISIBLE STRINGS: 113 POETS RESPOND TO THE SONGS OF TAYLOR SWIFT
An anthology of brand-new poems inspired by Taylor Swift songs, from a powerhouse group of contemporary poets, including Kate Baer, Maggie Smith, and Joy Harjo.
EDIM-GATHER ME: A MEMOIR IN PRAISE OF THE BOOKS THAT SAVED ME
An inspiring memoir of family, community, and resilience, and an ode to the power of books to help us understand ourselves, from the renowned founder of Well-Read Black Girl. ‘She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.’–Toni Morrison. For Glory Edim, that ‘friend of my mind’ is books. Edim, who grew up in Virginia to Nigerian immigrant parents, started the popular Well-Read Black Girl book club at age thirty, but her love of books stretches far back: to public libraries alongside her little brothers after elementary school while her mother was working; to high school libraries where she discovered books she wasn’t being taught in class; to dorm rooms and airplanes and subway rides–and, eventually, to a community of half a million other readers. When Edim’s father moved back to Nigeria while she was still a child, she and her brothers were left with a single mother and little money, often finding a safe space at their local library. Books were where Edim found community, and as she grew older, she discovered the Black writers whose words would forever change her life: Nikki Giovanni through children’s poetry cassettes; Maya Angelou through a critical high school English teacher; Toni Morrison while attending Morrison’s alma mater, Howard University; Audre Lorde on a flight to Nigeria. In prose full of both joy and heartbreak, Edim recounts how these writers and so many others helped her to value herself: to find her own voice when her mother lost hers, to trust her feelings when her father remarried, to create bonds with other Black women and uplift their own stories. Gather Me is a glowing testament to the power of representation and the lasting impact of literature to gather our disparate parts and put them back together.
GERARD-HALF BAKED HARVEST QUICK AND COZY
120+ recipes for delicious, soul-warming comfort food that comes together in a flash, to make you feel cozy any time of year–from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Half Baked Harvest Every Day. Colorful. Convenient. Comforting. Mega-bestselling author Tieghan Gerard is busier than ever–always taking photographs, posting recipes, and collaborating with friends. In her fourth cookbook, she returns with a collection of more than 120 recipes that reflect the way she cooks now: simple ingredients, easy to get on the table, short on time yet big on flavor. Having cooked for her large family from a young age, Tieghan loves the feeling of sharing great food–and now she wants to share that feeling with you. This collection leans into the comfort food she’s known for, but with an eye toward getting it ready in a hurry. With many recipes doable in one pot or pan, most in under forty-five minutes, and a more-is-more focus on flavor (but not ingredients), you’ll be feasting fast. Start your day with Maple Bacon Pancakes with Bourbon Maple Syrup, snack on Cheesy Roasted Shallot Bread, and make Garlic Butter Steak Bites with Bang Bang Sauce your family’s new favorite. Enjoy delicious twists like Sheet Pan Mac & Cheese with All the Crispy Edges, and, of course, finish it all off with something sweet, like a Dark Chocolate Pistachio Cake with Cream Cheese Icing. Relying on basic ingredients and Tieghan’s signature knack for making sauces and dressings that you’ll want to double to keep on hand at all times, these recipes will make your meals feel like a warm hug. If you’ve ever needed a belly full of comfort and a plate bursting with fresh, unexpected flavors–and wanted it all right now–Half Baked Harvest Quick & Cozy is for you.
KIMMERER- THE SERVICEBERRY: ABUNDANCE AND RECIPROCITY IN THE NATURAL WORLD
As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth–its abundance of sweet, juicy berries–to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.
O’CONNER-CHERISHING EACH CHILD: RILEY HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN, 1924-2024
Millions of children have been treated, either as inpatients or outpatients, at Riley Hospital for Children. They have come from all over the world, including every county and every corner of Indiana. Additionally, the Riley Children’s Foundation has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to benefit each facet of the hospital’s operation. This generosity has come through hundreds of thousands of gifts, small and large, and is a wonderful example of a commitment to children from both the city of Indianapolis and the state of Indiana. In celebration of the hospital’s one hundredth anniversary, Candace O’Connor and the Riley Children’s Foundation have worked to tell the remarkable story of good Hoosier folks coming together to address an incredibly important issue-with a commitment to do it as well as it can be done.
U.S. soldiers who served in overseas conflicts–from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan–share their true stories of the actions that earned them some of America’s most distinguished military medals, up to and including the Medal of Honor. There has never been a better time for all of us to think about duty, sacrifice, and what it means to be an American hero.
WOO-MASTER SLAVE HUSBAND WIFE: AN EPIC JOURNEY FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM
Presents the remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled white man and William posing as “his” slave.
ZAKI- HOPE FOR CYNICS: THE SURPRISING SCIENCE OF HUMAN GOODNESS
For thousands of years, people have argued about whether humanity is selfish or generous, cruel or kind. In 1972, half of Americans agreed that most people can be trusted; by 2018, that figure had fallen to 30%. Different generations, genders, religions, and political parties can’t seem to agree on anything, except, perhaps, on one idea: that human virtue is evaporating. Cynicism is a perfectly understandable response to a world full of injustice, harm, and inequality. But in many cases, cynicism has become the first–or only–tool that people reach for these days. It is the psychological hammer of our age, and we are treating others more and more like nails. When we expect people to be awful, we coax awfulness out of them. Cynicism is a disease–with a history, symptoms, and a cure.
ABKs:
YOUNG ADULT:
Orphaned heiress Kidan Adane grew up far from the arcane society she was born into, where human bloodlines gain power through vampire companionship. When her sister, June, disappears, Kidan is convinced a vampire stole her–the very vampire bound to their family, the cruel yet captivating Susenyos Sagad. To find June, Kidan must infiltrate the elite Uxlay University–where students study to ensure peaceful coexistence between humans and vampires and inherit their family legacies. Kidan must survive living with Susenyos–even as he does everything he can to drive her away. It doesn’t matter that Susenyos’s wickedness speaks to Kidan’s own violent nature and tempts her to surrender to a life of darkness. She must find her sister and kill Susenyos at all costs. When a murder mirroring June’s disappearance shakes Uxlay, Kidan sinks further into the ruthless underworld of vampires, risking her very soul. There she discovers a centuries-old threat–and June could be at the center of it. To save her sister, Kidan must bring Uxlay to its knees and either break free from the horrors of her own actions or embrace the dark entanglements of love–and the blood it requires.
When fifteen-year-old Bella’s latest blackout lands her in the hospital, she enters rehab to confront her addiction to alcohol.
YOUNG ADULT NON-FIC:
GRAPHIC NOVELS:
GOTOUGE-DEMON SLAYER: KIMETSU NO YAIBA: 1
In Taisho-era Japan, kindhearted Tanjiro Kamado makes a living selling charcoal. But his peaceful life is shattered when a demon slaughters his entire family. His little sister Nezuko is the only survivor, but she has been transformed into a demon herself! Tanjiro sets out on a dangerous journey to find a way to return his sister to normal and destroy the demon who ruined his life. Learning to slay dragons won’t be easy, and Tanjiro barely knows where to start. The surprise appearances of another boy named Giyu, who seems to know what’s going on, might provide some answers–but only if Tanjiro can stop Giyu from killing his sister first!
TWEEN FICTION:
TWEEN NON-FIC:
BOYER-HOW TO SURVIVE IN THE AGE OF PIRATES
Handy guide to swashbuckling adventures, avoiding deadly diseases, and escaping ruthless renegades of the high seas.
CHILDREN’S EASY CHAPTER:
CHILDREN’S EASY CHAPTER NON-FIC:
RICE-UNSEEN JUNGLE
Did you know that you’re surrounded by microbes? They’re on your body, in your body, and on every body! In fact, only about half of our bodies’ cells are human cells–the rest are microbes. From the ways they help us digest our food to the ways they control critters and creatures (zombie flies, anyone?), microbes form an unseen jungle around us. Complete with zany, gross facts, hilarious and sometimes disgusting illustrations, and interviews with real researchers, this is your close-up view of the microbe drama unfolding in your world every day.
CHILDREN’S EASY:
DENISE-KNIGHT OWL AND EARLY BIRD
Owl, captain of the Knight Watch, is dismissive of Early Bird, an energetic and talkative bird who aspires to be a Knight Owl until her bravery shines through during a wolf attack.
Piper, a book-hoarding chipmunk, does not want to share, until she discovers the magic of the library.
When Alice Tapper noticed that the girls in her class weren’t participating as much as the boys, she knew she had to do something about it. With help from her Girl Scout troop and her parents, she came up with a patch that other girls could earn if they took a pledge to be more confident in school. Alice even wrote an op-ed about the experience for the New York Times! Inspired by that piece, this picture book illustrates her determination, bravery, and unwillingness to accept the status quo. With Marta Kissi’s delightful illustrations depicting Alice’s story, young readers everywhere will want to follow Alice’s lead and raise their hand!
CHILDREN’S EASY NON-FIC:
HOPKINSON-EVIDENCE!: HOW DR. JOHN SNOW SOLVED THE MYSTERY OF THE CHOLERA
The story of Dr. John Snow, who traced London’s cholera outbreak to a single water pump
ROSENSTOCK-SEA WITHOUT A SHORE: LIFE IN THE SARGASSO
From bryozoans and snails to shrimps, eels, swordfish, and whales, the Sargasso Sea provides a home to countless types of marine life, thanks to the prevalence of macroalgae called sargassum. Following a single blade of this extraordinary seaweed as it grows and spreads, readers see what it provides for the sea’s organisms: a base for hydroids and tube worms to filter and feed, shelter for anemones and nudibranchs and their nutritious waste, hunting grounds for crabs and amphipods, and a source of nourishment and protection for the fish, birds, whales, and reptiles that feed on these smaller creatures. Through a widening scope on this intricate interdependence, Barb Rosenstock celebrates one of our planet’s most diverse and important ecosystems and the unassuming seaweed that sustains it. Gorgeously illustrated with Katherine Roy’s rich, eye-catching artwork, Sea Without a Shore is as fluid and rhythmic as the currents that shape this tidal home.
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