News & Updates

New Nonfiction for Women's History Month

Adventures in Wonderland

Oscars Nominees You Can Borrow from the Library
Recommended Reads
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Shubeik Lubeik
Three wishes that are sold at an unassuming kiosk in Cairo link Aziza, Nour, and Shokry, changing their perspectives as well as their lives. Aziza learned early that life can be hard, but when she loses her husband and manages to procure a wish, she finds herself fighting bureaucracy and inequality for the right to have—and make—that wish. Nour is a privileged college student who secretly struggles with depression and must decide whether or not to use their wish to try to “fix” this depression, and then figure out how to do it. And, finally, Shokry must grapple with his religious convictions as he decides how to help a friend who doesn’t want to use their wish. Deena Mohamed brings to life a cast of characters whose struggles and triumphs are heartbreaking, inspiring, and deeply resonant.
Although their stories are fantastical—featuring talking donkeys, dragons, and cars that can magically avoid traffic—each of these people grapples with the very real challenge of trying to make their most deeply held desires come true. -
Girl in Pieces
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"
A haunting, beautiful, and necessary book."—Nicola Yoon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything
Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At seventeen she’s already lost more than most people do in a lifetime. But she’s learned how to forget. The broken glass washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don’t have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you.
Every new scar hardens Charlie’s heart just a little more, yet it still hurts so much. It hurts enough to not care anymore, which is sometimes what has to happen before you can find your way back from the edge.
A deeply moving portrait of a girl in a world that owes her nothing, and has taken so much, and the journey she undergoes to put herself back together. Kathleen Glasgow's debut is heartbreakingly real and unflinchingly honest. It’s a story you won’t be able to look away from.
And don’t miss Kathleen Glasgow's novels You’d Be Home Now and How to Make Friends with the Dark, both raw and powerful stories of life. -
Hot Dog
WINNER OF THE 2023 CALDECOTT MEDAL!
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
This glowing and playful picture book features an overheated—and overwhelmed—pup who finds his calm with some sea, sand, and fresh air. Destined to become a classic!
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews • New York Public Library
“An utter joy from beginning to end!” —Sophie Blackall, two-time Caldecott Medal winner
This hot dog has had enough of summer in the city! Enough of sizzling sidewalks, enough of wailing sirens, enough of people's feet right in his face. When he plops down in the middle of a crosswalk, his owner endeavors to get him the breath of fresh air he needs. She hails a taxi, hops a train, and ferries out to the beach.
Here, a pup can run!
With fluid art and lyrical text that have the soothing effect of waves on sand, award-winning author Doug Salati shows us how to find calm and carry it back with us so we can appreciate the small joys in a day. -
My Brother Is Away
In this moving picture book, a young girl reflects on the emotions and challenges of growing up with a brother who is incarcerated. This touching story is filled with vivid illustrations and is based on the author’s childhood experiences.
An NCTE Charlotte Huck Award Honor Book • NPR Best Book of the Year • A Charlotte Zolotow Honor Book
With her older brother in prison, a young girl copes with the confusing feelings his absence creates. At times she remembers the way her brother would carry her on his shoulders or how he would make up stories to tell her at bedtime. Other times she feels angry and wants to fly so far away that she can forget what happened.
When her Mama and Daddy take her on the 500-mile journey to visit him, a trip she knows not all families are able to make, the girl is excited but also nervous. But the nerves turn to joy when she sees him—everything is different, but everything is the same too. Her brother is not home, but his love hasn’t changed.
With words that are spare, gentle, and reassuring, this picture book will help young readers with similar stories feel less alone and give other readers a window into the struggles some children face. -
Gleanings
The New York Times bestselling Arc of the Scythe series continues with “captivating…thrilling” (School Library Journal) stories that span the timeline. Storylines continue. Origin stories are revealed. And new Scythes emerge!
There are still countless tales of the Scythedom to tell. Centuries passed between the Thunderhead cradling humanity and Scythe Goddard trying to turn it upside down. For years, humans lived in a world without hunger, disease, or death with Scythes as the living instruments of population control.
Neal Shusterman—along with collaborators David Yoon, Jarrod Shusterman, Sofía Lapuente, Michael H. Payne, Michelle Knowlden, and Joelle Shusterman—returns to the world throughout the timeline of the Arc of a Scythe series. Discover secrets and histories of characters you’ve followed for three volumes and meet new heroes, new foes, and some figures in between.
Gleanings shows just how expansive, terrifying, and thrilling the world that began with the Printz Honor–winning Scythe truly is. -
Freewater
John Newbery Medal Winner! 2023
Debut author Amina Luqman-Dawson pens a lyrical, accessible historical middle-grade novel about two enslaved children's escape from a plantation and the many ways they find freedom.
Under the cover of night, twelve-year-old Homer flees Southerland Plantation with his little sister Ada, unwillingly leaving their beloved mother behind. Much as he adores her and fears for her life, Homer knows there's no turning back, not with the overseer on their trail. Through tangled vines, secret doorways, and over a sky bridge, the two find a secret community called Freewater, deep in the swamp.
In this society created by formerly enslaved people and some freeborn children, Homer finds new friends, almost forgetting where he came from. But when he learns of a threat that could destroy Freewater, he crafts a plan to find his mother and help his new home.
Deeply inspiring and loosely based on the history of maroon communities in the South, this is a striking tale of survival, adventure, friendship, and courage.
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Ain't Burned All the Bright
A Caldecott Honor winner! 2023
Prepare yourself for something unlike anything: A smash-up of art and text for teens that viscerally captures what it is to be Black. In America. Right Now. Written by #1 New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Jason Reynolds.
Jason Reynolds and his best bud, Jason Griffin, had a mind-meld. And they decided to tackle it, in one fell swoop, in about ten sentences, and 300 pages of art, this piece, this contemplation-manifesto-fierce-vulnerable-gorgeous-terrifying-WhatIsWrongWithHumans-hope-filled-hopeful-searing-Eye-Poppingly-Illustrated-tender-heartbreaking-how-The-HECK-did-They-Come-UP-with-This project about oxygen. And all of the symbolism attached to that word, especially NOW.
And so for anyone who didn’t really know what it means to not be able to breathe, REALLY breathe, for generations, now you know. And those who already do, you’ll be nodding yep yep, that is exactly how it is. -
Love and Vermin
A New Yorker Best Book of 2022
The long awaited first collection by Will McPhail, with over 150 cartoons, including his New Yorker classics and new gems.
With his shrewd eye for mundane absurdities and hysterically astute drawings of animals, Will McPhail is the New Yorker's most distinctive cartoonist. His cartoons delight in the everyday anxieties of modern life, skewer contemporary politics, and cut to the core of the most bizarre human behaviors.
Now, in McPhail's first collection, new cartoons mix with old favorites: mischievous mice and opportunistic pigeons offer portals into McPhail's crackling curiosity, while Lady No-Kids' adventures continue with high-flying glee. With chapters ranging from the contemporary to the universal, and a classic black and white interior that evokes the timelessness of the craft, Love & Vermin proves why Will McPhail is one of the most cherished cartoonists of his generation.
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The Menu
A dark comedy horror featuring a young couple who travels to a faraway secluded island to eat at an exclusive restaurant where the chef has prepared an extravagant menu, with some shocking surprises.
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The Rabbit Listened
A moving and universal picture book about empathy and kindness, sure to soothe heartaches big and small—now a New York Times bestseller and a perfect gift for any special occasion
When something sad happens, Taylor doesn't know where to turn. All the animals are sure they have the answer. The chicken wants to talk it out, but Taylor doesn't feel like chatting. The bear thinks Taylor should get angry, but that's not quite right either. One by one, the animals try to tell Taylor how to act, and one by one they fail to offer comfort. Then the rabbit arrives. All the rabbit does is listen . . . which is just what Taylor needs.
With its spare, poignant text and irresistibly sweet illustration, The Rabbit Listened is about how to comfort and heal the people in your life, by taking the time to carefully, lovingly, gently listen.