Summer is almost over but you can extend the season of fun a bit longer with a gripping adventure or fantasy story. Or try one of the new nonfiction titles about women in ISIS or from best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell. You can find these new titles in our catalog and at a neighborhood library near you!
Young Children (Up to 2nd Grade)
Feeling different, especially as a kid, can be tough. But in the same way that different types of plants and flowers make a garden more beautiful and enjoyable, different types of people make our world more vibrant and wonderful. In this book, United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor celebrates the different abilities kids (and people of all ages) have.
Older Children (3rd Grade to 6th Grade)
A nuanced, character-driven story testing the main character’s determination, persistence, and decision-making beyond her limits. Twelve-year-old Willa must get her 10-year-old twin brothers safely through the Alaskan wilderness, fleeing their increasingly reckless, erratic, and violent father on a rickety raft to the nearest town, Fort Yukon. They navigate wildlife (from bears to an orphaned wolf pup that one twin smuggles along), rough rivers, and supply problems, all while avoiding detection, as Willa's afraid they'll be returned to their father before she can contact their aunt in New York for help. Additionally, Willa has to continually persuade her brothers that they want to leave the only life they can remember, that there is something better out there. The survival elements are entertaining and informative, and there's a good balance between self-sufficiency and reliance on adults for appropriate help at the novel's climax. A sense of hope is maintained through every set-back; at one point, it’s the only thing Willa and her brothers have left. While not all is resolved by the end, the story concludes on a hopeful note. Willa's family is white while the Fort Yukon population introduces mainly Gwichyaa Gwich'in people. The acknowledgements thank a wolf expert and a board member of the Gwich'in Council International.
Teen Fiction
Ready Player One meets The Hate U Give in this dynamite debut novel that follows a fierce teen game developer as she battles a real-life troll intent on ruining the Black Panther–inspired video game she created and the safe community it represents for Black gamers.
Adult Fiction
The Emperor needs necromancers.
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.
Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead nonsense.
Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won't set her free without a service.
Adult Nonfiction
The prolific, best-selling author (David and Goliath; The Tipping Point) presents an intriguing analysis of what far too often goes wrong when strangers meet, diving deeply into relatively well-known controversial public incidents thoroughly covered by the mass media to cast doubt on how the general public has come to understand these events. Mr. Gladwell is visiting Philly on September 26 for an Author Event at the Irvine Auditorium to talk about his new book.
Based on years of immersive reporting by a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Moaveni, an Iranian-American journalist, explores the phenomenon of Muslim women; some working-class drifters and desolate housewives, but many of them educated, successful, and outwardly Westernized who chose to travel to Syria in support of jihad. She follows 13 women and girls who were radicalized by news, by recruiters on social media, or within their social circles.
Adult DVD and Blu-ray
In this psychological horror-thriller, Sue Ann, a loner in her quiet Ohio town, is asked by Maggie, a new teenager in town, to buy some booze for her and her friends. Sue Ann sees the chance to make some unsuspecting younger friends. She offers the kids the chance to avoid drinking and driving by hanging out in the basement of her home as long as they abide by the house rules: Someone has to stay sober, don't curse, never go upstairs, and call her "Ma." Her hospitality starts to curdle into obsession as Sue Ann sees them as an opportunity to have the popularity that she never enjoyed when she was their age... at any cost. What begins as a teenage dream turns into a terrorizing nightmare, and Ma's place goes from the best place in town to the worst place on earth.
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