Coming This Winter: Ages 9-12






    • Giles, L. R.
      Last mirror on the left
      Summary:Otto and Sheed, The Legendary Alston Boys of Logan County, are ordered by Missus Nedraw to bring a fugitive to justice in a world that mirrors their own but has its own rules.





    • Alston, B. B.
      Amari and the night brothers
      Summary:Thirteen-year-old Amari, a poor Black girl from the projects, gets an invitation from her missing brother to join the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs and join in the fight against an evil magician.







    • Schmidt, Gary D.
      Just Like That
      Summary:With insight and a light touch, best-selling, Newbery Honor-winning author Gary D. Schmidt tells two poignant, linked stories: that of a grieving girl and a boy trying to escape his violent past.


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Best Science Fiction 2020


  • Cipri, Nino
    Finna
    Summary:When an elderly customer at a Swedish big box furniture store — but not that one — slips through a portal to another dimension, it’s up to two minimum-wage employees to track her across the multiverse and protect their company’s bottom line. Multi-dimensional swashbuckling would be hard enough, but those two unfortunate souls broke up a week ago. To find the missing granny, Ava and Jules will brave carnivorous furniture, swarms of identical furniture spokespeople, and the deep resentment simmering between them. Can friendship blossom from the ashes of their relationship? In infinite dimensions, all things are possible.


  • Muir, Tamsyn
    Harrow the ninth
    Summary:"After rocking the cosmos with her deathly debut, Tamsyn Muir continues the story of the penumbral Ninth House in Harrow the Ninth, a mind-twisting puzzle box of mystery, murder, magic, and mayhem. Nothing is as it seems in the halls of the Emperor, and the fate of the galaxy rests on one woman’s shoulders. Harrowhark’s health is failing, her magic refuses to cooperate, her sword makes her throw up, and even her mind threatens to betray her. What’s worse, someone is trying to kill her. And she has to wonder: if they succeeded, would the universe be better off?"


  • Onyebuchi, Tochi
    Riot baby
    Summary:"Rooted in foundational loss and the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is both a global dystopian narrative and an intimate family story with quietly devastating things to say about love, fury, and the black American experience. Ella and Kev are brother and sister, both gifted with extraordinary power. Their childhoods are defined and destroyed by structural racism and brutality. Their futures might alter the world. When Kev is incarcerated for the crime of being a young black man in America, Ella-through visits both mundane and supernatural-tries to show him the way to a revolution that could burn it all down."


  • Walschots, Natalie Zina
    Hench : a novel
    Summary:"Anna does boring things for terrible people because even criminals need office help and she needs a job. Working for a monster lurking beneath the surface of the world isn’t glamorous. But is it really worse than working for an oil conglomerate or an insurance company? In this economy? As a temp, she’s just a cog in the machine. But when she finally gets a promising assignment, everything goes very wrong, and an encounter with the so-called "hero" leaves her badly injured. And, to her horror, compared to the other bodies strewn about, she’s the lucky one. So, of course, then she gets laid off. With no money and no mobility, with only her anger and internet research acumen, she discovers her suffering at the hands of a hero is far from unique. When people start listening to the story that her data tells, she realizes she might not be as powerless as she thinks. Because the key to everything is data: knowing how to collate it, how to manipulate it, and how to weaponize it. By tallying up the human cost these caped forces of nature wreak upon the world, she discovers that the line between good and evil is mostly marketing. And with social media and viral videos, she can control that appearance. It’s not too long before she’s employed once more, this time by one of the worst villains on earth. As she becomes an increasingly valuable lieutenant, she might just save the world."–Amazon.


  • Skrutskie, Emily
    Bonds of brass
    Summary:A young pilot risks everything to save his best friend–the man he trusts most and might even love–only to learn that his friend is secretly the heir to a brutal galactic empire. Ettian’s life was shattered when the merciless Umber Empire invaded his world. He’s spent seven years putting himself back together under its rule, joining an Umber military academy and becoming the best pilot in his class. Even better, he’s met Gal–his exasperating and infuriatingly enticing roommate who’s made the academy feel like a new home. But when dozens of classmates spring an assassination plot on Gal, a devastating secret comes to light: Gal is the heir to the Umber Empire. Ettian barely manages to save his best friend and flee the compromised academy unscathed, rattled that Gal stands to inherit the empire that broke him, and that there are still people willing to fight back against Umber rule. As they piece together a way to deliver Gal safely to his throne, Ettian finds himself torn in half by an impossible choice. Does he save the man who’s won his heart and trust that Gal’s goodness could transform the empire? Or does he throw his lot in with the brewing rebellion and fight to take back what’s rightfully theirs?


  • Johnson, Micaiah
    The space between worlds
    Summary:"The multiverse business is booming, but there’s just one catch: no one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying-from diseases, from turf wars, from vendettas they couldn’t outrun. But on this earth, Cara’s survived. And she’s reaping the benefits, thanks to the well-heeled Wiley City scientists who ID’d her as an outlier and plucked her from the dirt. Now she’s got a new job collecting offworld data, a path to citizenship, and a near-perfect Wiley City accent. Now she can pretend she’s always lived in the city she grew up staring at from the outside, even if she feels like a fraud on either side of its walls. But when one of her eight remaining doppelgangers dies under mysterious circumstances, Cara is plunged into a new world with an old secret. What she discovers will connect her past and future in ways she never could have imagined-and reveal her own role in a plot that endangers not just her world, but the entire multiverse."

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    Best Mysteries of 2020


  • Friedman, Daniel
    Running out of road
    Summary:""Daniel Friedman has done it again-only better."- Michael Sears, bestselling author of Black Fridays Once, Detective Buck Schatz patrolled the city of Memphis, chasing down robbers and killers with a blackjack truncheon and a .357. But he’s been retired for decades. Now he’s frail and demented, and Rose, his wife of 72 years, is ill and facing a choice about her health care that Buck is terrified to even consider. The future looks short and bleak, and Buck’s only escape is into the past. But Buck’s past is under attack as well. After 35 years on death row, convicted serial killer Chester March finally has an execution date. Chester is the oldest condemned man in the United States, and his case has attracted the attention of NPR producer Carlos Watkins, who believes Chester was convicted on the strength of a coerced confession. Chester’s conviction is the capstone on Buck’s storied career, and, to save Chester’s life, Watkins is prepared to tear down Buck’s reputation and legacy."


  • Quartey, Kwei
    The missing American
    Summary:"When her dreams of rising through the police ranks like her late father crash around her, 26-year-old Emma Djan is unsure what will become of her life in Accra. Through a sympathetic former colleague, Emma gets an interview with a private detective agency tracking down missing persons, thefts, and marital infidelities. It’s not the future she imagined, but it’s her best option. Meanwhile, Gordon Tilson, a middle-aged widower in Washington, DC, has found solace in an online community after his wife’s passing. Through the support group, he’s even met a young Ghanaian widow he really cares about, and when her sister gets into a car accident, he sends her thousands of dollars to cover the hospital bill–to the horror of his only son, Derek. When Gordon runs off to Ghana to surprise his new love and disappears, Derek chases after him, fearing for his father’s life. The case of the missing American man will drag both Emma and Derek into a world of Sakawa scams, fetish priests, and those willing to keep things secret through death."


  • Pavesi, Alex
    The eighth detective : a novel
    Summary:"There are rules for murder mysteries. There must be a victim. A suspect. A detective. The rest is just shuffling the sequence. Expanding the permutations. Grant McAllister, a professor of mathematics, once sat down and worked them all out – calculating the different orders and possibilities of a mystery into seven perfect detective stories he quietly published. But that was thirty years ago. Now Grant lives in seclusion on a remote Mediterranean island, counting the rest of his days. Until Julia Hart, a sharp, ambitious editor knocks on his door. Julia wishes to republish his book, and together they must revisit those old stories: an author hiding from his past, and an editor, keen to understand it. But there are things in the stories that don’t add up. Inconsistencies left by Grant that a sharp-eyed editor begins to suspect are more than mistakes. They may be clues, and Julia finds herself with a mystery of her own to solve."


  • Mukherjee, Abir
    Death in the east : a novel
    Summary:1905, London. As a young constable, Sam Wyndham is on his usual East London beat when he comes across an old flame, Bessie Drummond, attacked in the streets. The next day, when Bessie is found brutally beaten in her own room, locked from the inside, Wyndham promises to get to the bottom of her murder. But the case will cost the young constable more than he ever imagined. 1922, India. Leaving Calcutta, Captain Sam Wyndham heads for the hills of Assam, to the ashram of a sainted monk where he hopes to conquer his opium addiction. But when he arrives, he sees a ghost from his life in London–a man thought to be long dead, a man Wyndham hoped he would never see again. Wyndham knows he must call his friend and colleague Sergeant Banerjee for help. He is certain this figure from his past isn’t here by coincidence. He is here for revenge.


  • March, Nev
    Murder in old Bombay
    Summary:"In 1892, Bombay is the center of British India. Nearby, Captain Jim Agnihotri lays in Poona military hospital recovering from a skirmish on the wild northern frontier, with little to read but newspapers. The case that catches Jim’s attention is being called the crime of the century: Two women fell from the busy university’s clock tower in broad daylight. Moved by the widower of one of the victims – his certainty that his wife and sister did not commit suicide – Jim approaches the Framjis and is hired by the Parsee family to investigate what happened that terrible afternoon. But in a land of divided loyalties, asking questions is dangerous. Jim’s investigation disturbs the shadows that seem to follow the Framji family and triggers an ominous chain of events. Based on real events, and set against the vibrant backdrop of colonial India, Nev March’s lyrical debut Murder in Old Bombay brings this tumultuous historical age to life."


  • Montclair, Allison
    A royal affair
    Summary:"In London 1946, The Right Sort Marriage Bureau is just beginning to take off and the proprietors, Miss Iris Sparks and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge, are in need of a bigger office and a secretary to handle the growing demand. Unfortunately, they don’t yet have the necessary means. So when a woman arrives-a cousin of Gwen’s-with an interesting and quite remunerative proposition, they two of them are all ears. The cousin, one Lady Matheson, works for the Queen in "some capacity" and is in need of some discreet investigation. It seems that the Princess Elizabeth has developed feelings for a dashing Greek prince and a blackmail note has arrived, alluding to some potentially damaging information about said prince. Wanting to keep this out of the palace gossip circles, but also needing to find out what skeletons might lurk in the prince’s closet, the
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    Best Thrillers of 2020


  • Läckberg, Camilla
    The golden cage : a novel
    Summary:Tthe story of the scorned wife of a billionaire, and her delicious plot to get her revenge and bring him to his knees"


  • Momplaisir, Francesca
    My mother’s house : a novel
    Summary:Moving his family to an immigrant enclave in New York in the hopes of starting over, an emotionally damaged Haitian man succumbs to dark impulses that have dangerous ripple effects for the others living in his home.


  • Vaughan, Sarah
    Little disasters : a novel
    Summary:"In this novel, a doctor is faced with an ethical dilemma when her friend’s child lands in the emergency room"


  • Thomas, Elisabeth
    Catherine house : a novel
    Summary:Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, this crucible of reformist liberal arts study with its experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment, has produced some of the world’s best minds: prize-winning authors, artists, inventors, Supreme Court justices, presidents. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free. But acceptance comes with a price. Students are required to give the House three years–summers included–completely removed from the outside world. Family, friends, television, music, even their clothing must be left behind. In return, the school promises a future of sublime power and prestige, and that its graduates can become anything or anyone they desire.


  • Beams, Clare
    The illness lesson
    Summary:The year is 1871. In Ashwell, Massachusetts, at the farm of Samuel Hood and his daughter, Caroline, a mysterious flock of red birds descends. Samuel, whose fame as a philosopher has waned in recent years, takes the birds’ appearance as an omen that the time is ripe for his newest venture. He will start a school for young women, guiding their intellectual development as he has so carefully guided his daughter’s. Despite Caroline’s misgivings, Samuel’s vision–revolutionary, as always; noble, as always; full of holes, as always–takes shape. It’s not long before the students begin to manifest bizarre symptoms. Rashes, fits, headaches, verbal tics, night wanderings. In desperation, the school turns to the ministering of a sinister physician–based on a real historic treatment–just as Caroline’s body, too, begins its betrayal. As the girls’ conditions worsens, long-buried secrets emerge, and Caroline must confront the all-male, all-knowing authorities around her, the ones who insist the voices of the sufferers are unreliable. In order to save herself, Caroline may have to destroy everything she’s ever known.


  • Tanabe, Karin
    A hundred suns
    Summary:"An evocative historical novel set in 1930’s Indochine, about the American wife of a Michelin heir who journeys to the French colony in the name of family fortune, and the glamorous, tumultuous world she finds herself in-and the truth she may be running from.

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    Best Fiction for Tweens : 2020


  • Barron, Rena
    Maya and the rising dark
    Summary:"A twelve-year-old girl discovers her father is the keeper of the gateway between our world and The Dark, and when he goes missing she’ll need to unlock her own powers and fight a horde of spooky creatures set on starting a war."


  • Patterson, James
    Becoming Muhammad Ali : a novel
    Summary:A biogrphical novel tells the story of Cassius Clay, the determined boy who would one day become Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest boxers of all time.


  • Nayeri, Daniel
    Everything sad is untrue : (a true story)
    Summary:At the front of a middle school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls "Daniel") stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much. But Khosrou’s stories, stretching back years, and decades, and centuries, are beautiful, and terrifying, from the moment his family fled Iran in the middle of the night with the secret police moments behind them, back to the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy.and further back to the fields near the river Aras, where rain-soaked flowers bled red like the yolk of sunset burst over everything, and further back still to the Jasmine-scented city of Isfahan. Like Scheherazade in a hostile classroom, Daniel weaves a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. And it is (a true story).

  • Leyh, Kat
    Snapdragon
    Summary:Snap’s town had a witch. At least, that’s how the rumor goes. But in reality, Jacks is just a crocks-wearing, internet-savvy old lady who sells roadkill skeletons online–after doing a little ritual to put their spirits to rest. It’s creepy, sure, but Snap thinks it’s kind of cool, too. They make a deal: Jacks will teach Snap how to take care of the baby opossums that Snap rescued, and Snap will help Jacks with her work. But as Snap starts to get to know Jacks, she realizes that Jacks may in fact have real magic–and a connection with Snap’s family’s past.


  • Woodson, Jacqueline
    Before the ever after
    Summary:ZJ’s friends Ollie, Darry and Daniel help him cope when his father, a beloved professional football player, suffers severe headaches and memory loss that spell the end of his career.


  • Callender, Kacen
    King and the dragonflies
    Summary:"In a small but turbulent Louisiana town, one boy’s grief takes him beyond the bayous of his backyard, to learn that there is no right way to be yourself."

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    Killer Christmas


  • Fletcher, Jessica
    Murder in season : a novel
    Summary:"With work on the reconstruction of her beloved home almost complete, Jessica Fletcher is in high holiday spirits, spearheading the annual Christmas pageant, supervising the Friends of the Library’s toy drive, and preparing for her nephew Grady and his family to come to town. The only thing dampening the holiday cheer is the discovery on Jessica’s property of two sets of bones: one set ancient, the other only a few weeks old. It’s concluded they were placed there during the construction, and Jessica suspects that despite the centuries between them, the bones might be connected. Soon, tabloid reporter Franklin Joy arrives in Cabot Cove to write a story about what he calls "Murder Cove, USA." But when Franklin himself is murdered, Jessica speculates that his arrival, his death, and the discovery of the bones are all connected. As Jessica digs deeper to find the connection between the bones and the murder, everything seems to come back to a mystery that has long plagued Cabot Cove. If she wants to solve the case, she’ll need to delve into her beloved town’s dark history, or else this holiday season may be her last…"


  • Perry, Anne.
    A Christmas resolution : a novel
    Summary:"When Celia Hooper discovers that her dear friend Clementine is to marry widower Seth Marlowe – a man with a sinister past – she calls upon her husband, Detective John Hooper of the Thames River Police, to help her find out what really happened to Seth’s first wife several years ago. Rumour has it that she killed herself and Seth’s daughter ran away to live on the streets but no one seems to know the truth."


  • Andrews, Donna
    The gift of the magpie : a Meg Langslow mystery
    Summary:"Meg’s running Caerphilly’s Helping Hands for the Holidays project, in which neighbors help each other with things they can’t do and can’t afford to have done. Her hopes for a relatively peaceful (if busy) Christmas vanish when someone murders Harvey the Hoarder, whose house the Helping Hands were decluttering. Was there any truth to the rumor that he had something valuable hidden beneath all his junk? Was one of his friends, neighbors, or relatives greedy enough to murder him for the rumored treasure? And what about the magpie that has been bringing her family bits of tinsel and costume jewelry-does the bird’s latest gift hold a clue to solving the crime?"


  • Coco, Nancy
    Have yourself a fudgy little Christmas : a candy-coated mystery with recipes
    Summary:When a mysterious note leads her to a dying woman who names her friend, Frances, as her killer, fudge shop owner Allie McMurphy knows that’s impossible and must wrap up this case before the trail runs cold.


  • Haines, Carolyn
    A garland of bones
    Summary:"Sarah Booth has traded in hosting this Christmas season for a road trip with her besties. Each little Delta town has a special Christmas activity, and Sarah Booth’s bff and detective partner, Tinkie, has arranged to rent a limo for the gang and drive to Columbus, MS, to stay in a B&B. But Christmas cheer soon turns to Christmas fear when, at one event after another, people keep getting hurt. And when the woman who hires Sarah Booth to find the villain behind the so-called accidents is nearly killed with an arrow during a holiday mumming, Sarah Booth knows something more sinister is at work."


  • Brady, Eileen (Veterinarian)
    Saddled with murder
    Summary:"It’s Christmas season and veterinarian Kate Turner is definitely not feeling jolly. She’s overworked, unappreciated, dealing with two dissatisfied clients AND a complicated personal life. Then, both dissatisfied clients pass away within two weeks of each other. Coincidence, right? But when Kate’s ex-boyfriend, Jeremy, is mugged and robbed after they have a heated argument in the hospital parking lot, all the coincidences seem to point to something a little more sinister… The fifth entry in the delightful, animal-focused mystery series finds Kate with her hands tied while trying to juggle her love-life, work, and a murder investigation."


  • Ireland, Liz
    Mrs. Claus and the Santaland slayings
    Summary:April Claus is adjusting to life in the North Pole with her new husband, Nick, when the suspicious death of an ill-tempered elf, initially ruled an accident, motivates her to investigate suspects on a potentially lethal naughty list.


  • Christmas card murder
    Summary:Christmas card murder: "In the midst of holiday home renovations, Lucy Stone accidentally unwraps a murder mystery decades in the making when she discovers an old Christmas card with a nasty message belonging to one of her farmhouse’s previous residents. The case may be colder than a New England Christmas, but Lucy’s determined to sort it out before Santa comes to town."–Amazon.,Death of a Christmas Carol: "The Island Times Christmas soiree gets off to a scroogey start when Hayley Powell, Mona Barnes, and Rosana Moretti receive a Christmas card from the town flirt, Carol Waterman, who threatens to run off with one of their husbands! The ladies chalk it up to an imprudent prank…until they find Carol mistletoe-up under her tree…"–Amazon.,Death of a Christmas card crafter: "Slay bells ring when the body of Arborville High School’s beloved art teacher (and annual Christmas card designer), Karma Karling, is discovered on the first day of the Holiday Craft Fair. Now, Pamela Paterson and the Knit and Nibble crew must swap swatching for sleuthing in order to put a Christmas killer on ice."–Amazon.


  • Corrigan, Maya
    Gingerdead man
    Summary:When a man playing Santa is poisoned by one of her cookies at the Dickens of a holiday festival, Val Deniston’s reputation is on the line and she and her Granddad must race against time to catch a cookie-cutter killer.


  • Fluke, Joanne
    Christmas cupcake murder
    Summary:While Hannah speeds through a lengthy holiday checklist, drama in town grows like Santa’s waistline on Christmas Eve. Her sister Andrea wants to stave off the blues by helping out at The Cookie Jar, Michele’s love life is becoming complicated,
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    Scandi Style


  • Balslev, Lynda
    The little book of fika : the uplifting daily ritual of the Swedish coffee break
    Summary:"While the Danish concept of hygge as caught on around the globe, so has lagom–its Swedish counterpart. An essential part of the lagom lifestyle, fika is the simple art of taking a break–sometimes twice a day–to enjoy a warm beverage and sweet treat with friends. This delightful gift book offers an introduction to the tradition along with recipes to help you establish your own fika practice"–Amazon.com.


  • Sinclair, Patricia.
    Scandinavian classic baking
    Summary:From coffee breads and cakes to cookies and tarts, this gorgeous cookbook offers forty-three recipes, along with photographs, history, musings, and stories. These classic Scandinavian baking recipes are knockouts for the eye and the taste buds.


  • Wallin, Johanna
    Traditional Nordic knits : over 40 hats, mittens, gloves, and socks
    Summary:The classic Nordic knitting tradition is a widely-respected – and increasingly popular – source of exquisite patterns and design inspiration all over the world. Now, with Traditional Nordic Knits, get a glimpse into the rich history and heritage of this beloved cornerstone of needlecraft. 15 time-honored patterns become over 40 different projects, gracing mittens, gloves, hats, and socks through designs suitable for all levels of experience, and each project is introduced with an example of a historic knitted item and a fascinating explanation of the pattern’s background and origin.

  • Bajada, Simon
    Nordic light : lighter, everyday eating from a Scandinavian kitchen
    Summary:Presents a new angle on the trends in Scandinavian recipes and techniques, shying away from the classics and instead presenting lighter, cleaner, simpler modern recipes.


  • Hovland, Marit
    Bakeland : Nordic treats inspired by nature
    Summary:From the Danish concept of hygge (or zcozinessy) to the Swedish fika (or zcoffee breaky), when it comes to enjoying the good things in life, the Nordic countries tend to know best. And dessert, Bakeland reveals, is no exception. Written by Marit Hovland, the Norse graphic designer, baker, and photographer behind the popular Instagram account and blog Borrow My Eyes, this gorgeous recipe book is a remarkably innovative homage to the beauty of the world around us that will delight lovers of baking, crafting, nature, and all things Scandinavian. With fifty tempting dessert recipes and 140 stunning color photographs, Bakeland is as much a treat for the eyes as it is for the taste buds. Focusing on purity, season, and quality, Hovland offers a sweet, playful approach to the New Nordic cuisine trend made popular by chefs like Magnus Nilsson. Her belief that zinspiration can be found everywherey shines through in each of her culinary creations, which replicate the most striking aspects of the natural world.


  • Dunne, Linnea
    Lagom : the Swedish art of balanced living
    Summary:Explains how to live "lagom," or a balanced life, by cherishing relationships, improving work-life balance, freeing the home from clutter, and savoring good food.,Lagom (pronounced ‘lar-gom’) has no equivalent in the English language but is loosely translated as ‘not too little, not too much, just right’. It is widely believed that the word comes from the Viking term ‘laget om’, for when a mug of mead was passed around a circle and there was just enough for everyone to get a sip. But while the anecdote may hit the nail on the head, the true etymology of the word points to an old form of the word ‘lag’, which means ‘law’. Far from restrictive, lagom is a liberating concept, praising the idea that anything more that ‘just enough’ is a waste of time. Crucially it also comes with a selflessness and core belief of responsibility and common good. By living lagom you can live a happier and more balanced life, reduce your environmental impact, improve your work-life balance, free your home from clutter, enjoy good food the Swedish way, grow your own and learn to forage, and cherish the relationships with those you love.


  • Magnusson, Margareta (Artist)
    The gentle art of Swedish death cleaning : how to free yourself and your family from a lifetime of clutter
    Summary:Margareta suggests which possessions you can easily get rid of (unworn clothes, unwanted presents, more plates than you’d ever use) and which you might want to keep (photographs, love letters, a few of your children’s art projects). Digging into her late husband’s tool shed, and her own secret drawer of vices, Margareta introduces an element of fun to a potentially daunting task. Along the way readers get a glimpse into her life in Sweden, and also become more comfortable with the idea of letting go.

  • Johansen, Signe
    How to hygge : the Nordic secrets to a happy life
    Summary:"The "Danish coziness" philosophy is fast becoming the new "French living" in terms of aspirational lifestyle books and blogs. There are countless viral articles comparing the happiness levels of Americans versus Danes. Their homes are more homey; their people are more cheerful. It’s an attitude that defies definition, but there is a name for this slow-moving, stress-free mindset: hygge (pronounced "hoo-ga"). Hygge values the idea of cherishing yourself: candlelight, bakeries, and dinner with friends; a celebration of experiences over possessions, as well as being kind to yourself and treasuring a sense of community."–Amazon.com.

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    All is Calm : Calming Books for Teens


      • Morgan, Nicola
        Positively teen : a practical guide to a more positive, more confident you
        Summary:Morgan teaches teens how to approach their adolescent years with optimism and understanding. She provides advice on how to flourish both physically and mentally, giving them the skills they need to develop long-term well-being. She emphasizes the importance of doing things you enjoy, and understanding the relation of diet, exercise and attitude to your personality and long-term well-being. — adapted from Amazon.com



      • Pitts, Byron
        Be the one : six true stories of teens overcoming hardship with hope
        Summary:“Emmy Award-winning ABC News chief national correspondent and Nightline coanchor, Byron Pitts shares the heartbreaking and inspiring stories of six young people who overcame impossible circumstances with extraordinary perseverance. Abuse. Bullying. War. Drug Addiction. Mental Illness. Violence. None of these should be realities for anyone, much less a young person. But for some it is the only reality they have ever known. In these dark circumstances, six teens needed someone to “be the one” for them–the hero to help them back into the light. For Tania, Mason, Pappy, Michaela, Ryan, and Tyton, that hero was themselves. Through stirring interviews and his award-winning storytelling, Byron Pitts brings the struggles and triumphs of these everyday heroes to teens just like them, encouraging all of us to be the source of inspiration in our own lives and to appreciate the lives of others around us.”



      • Siebert, Melanie
        Heads up : changing minds on mental health
        Summary:“This nonfiction book for teen readers is a guide to understanding mental health and coping with mental illness, trauma and recovery. It features real-life stories of resilient teens and highlights innovative approaches to mental-health challenges.”



      • Cain, Susan
        Quiet power : the secret strengths of introverts
        Summary:“The monumental bestseller Quiet has been recast in a new edition that empowers introverted kids and teens Susan Cain sparked a worldwide conversation when she published Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. With her inspiring book, she permanently changed the way we see introverts and the way introverts see themselves. The original book focused on the workplace, and Susan realized that a version for and about kids was also badly needed. This book is all about kids’ world–school, extracurriculars, family life, and friendship. You’ll read about actual kids who have tackled the challenges of not being extroverted and who have made a mark in their own quiet way.”



      • Stewart, Whitney
        Mindfulness and meditation : handling life with a calm and focused mind
        Summary:“Feeling stressed out? Social media, homework, tests, and relationships can create deep anxiety. So can concerns about health and world affairs. Research shows that a regular mindfulness practice can help calm the mind, improve focus, and build happiness. Living mindfully involves paying attention to your inner and outer experiences with patience and without judgment. It also means acting and making choices with thoughtful consideration rather than impulsively. One key aspect of mindfulness is meditation. This ancient practice involves quieting the mind through breathing exercises and intentional inward focus, for a peaceful, relaxed, and natural state of awareness.” — Dust jacket.



      • Andrus, Aubre
        Project you : more than 50 ways to calm down, de-stress, and feel great
        Summary:“Find your balance. Make a protein-packed smoothie to energize for a busy day. Center yourself after a stressful week by taking five minutes to write in your journal. Strengthen your body and calm your mind with simple yoga poses and breathing techniques. Craft a vision board to help you achieve your goals. Create a time budget to organize your schedule. Develop an evening routine that will help you wind down before sleep. Award-winning author Aubre Andrus shares more than 50 do-right-now projects that will help you beat stress, smile big, and discover a calmer, more blissful you.”





      • Earl, Rae
        Your brain needs a hug : life, love, mental health, and sandwiches
        Summary:Rae Earl offers her personalized advice on the A to Zs of mental health, social media, family and friendship.  “Imbued with a sense of humor, understanding, and hope, Your Brain Needs a Hug is a judgment-free guide for living well with your mind. My Mad Fat Diary author Rae Earl offers her personalized advice on the A to Zs of mental health, social media, family and friendship. When she was a teenager, Rae dealt with OCD, anxiety, and an eating disorder, but she survived, and she thrived. Your Brain Needs a Hug is filled with her friendly advice, coping strategies and laugh-out-loud moments to get you through the difficult days. Witty, honest, and enlightening, this is the perfect read for feeling happier and healthier and learning to navigate life without feeling overwhelmed or isolated.”


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    2020 National Book Award : Nonfiction


      • Payne, Les
        The dead are arising : the life of Malcolm X
        Summary:“An epic biography of Malcolm X finally emerges, drawing on hundreds of hours of the author’s interviews, rewriting much of the known narrative. Les Payne, the renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, embarked in 1990 on a nearly thirty-year-long quest to interview anyone he could find who had actually known Malcolm X-all living siblings of the Malcolm Little family, classmates, street friends, cellmates, Nation of Islam figures, FBI moles and cops, and political leaders around the world. His goal was ambitious: to transform what would become over a hundred hours of interviews into an unprecedented portrait of Malcolm X, one that would separate fact from fiction. The result is this historic biography that conjures a never-before-seen world of its protagonist, a work whose title is inspired by a phrase Malcolm X used when he saw his Hartford followers stir with purpose, as if the dead were truly arising, to overcome the obstacles of racism. Setting Malcolm’s life not only within the Nation of Islam but against the larger backdrop of American history, the book traces the life of one of the twentieth century’s most politically relevant figures ‘from street criminal to devoted moralist and revolutionary.'”



      • Saunt, Claudio
        Unworthy republic : the dispossession of Native Americans and the road to Indian territory
        Summary:“A masterful and unsettling history of the forced migration of 80,000 Native Americans across the Mississippi River in the 1830s. On May 28, 1830, Congress authorized the expulsion of indigenous peoples from the East to territories west of the Mississippi River. Over the next decade, Native Americans saw their homelands and possessions stolen through fraud, intimidation, and murder. Thousands lost their lives. In this powerful, gripping book, Claudio Saunt upends the common view that “Indian Removal” was an inevitable chapter in US expansion across the continent.”



      • Shapland, Jenn
        My autobiography of Carson McCullers
        Summary:“While working as an intern in the archives at the Harry Ransom Center, Jenn Shapland encounters the love letters of Carson McCullers and a woman named Annemarie-letters that are tender, intimate, and unabashed in their feelings. Shapland recognizes herself in the letters’ language-but does not see McCullers as history has portrayed her. And so, Shapland is compelled to undertake a recovery of the full narrative and language of McCullers’s life: she wades through the therapy transcripts; she stays at McCullers’s childhood home, where she lounges in her bathtub and eats delivery pizza; she relives McCullers’s days at her beloved Yaddo. As Shapland reckons with the expanding and collapsing distance between her and McCullers, she sees the way McCullers’s story has become a way to articulate something about herself.”


      • Cornejo Villavicencio, Karla
        The undocumented Americans
        Summary:“Traveling across the country, journalist Karla Cornejo Villavicencio risked arrest at every turn to report the extraordinary stories of her fellow undocumented Americans. Her subjects have every reason to be wary around reporters, but Cornejo Villavicencio has unmatched access to their stories. Her work culminates in a stunning, essential read for our times. Born in Ecuador and brought to the United States when she was five years old, Cornejo Villavicencio has lived the American Dream. Raised on her father’s deliveryman income, she later became one of the first undocumented students admitted into Harvard. She is now a doctoral candidate at Yale University and has written for The New York Times. She weaves her own story among those of the eleven million undocumented who have been thrust into the national conversation today as never before.”



      • Walker, Jerald
        How to make a slave and other essays
        Summary:“Personal essays exploring identity, family, and community through the prism of race and black culture. Confronts the medical profession’s racial biases, shopping while black at Whole Foods, the legacy of Michael Jackson, raising black boys, haircuts that scare white people, racial profiling, and growing up in Southside Chicago.”


      • Bowdler, Michelle
        Is rape a crime? : a memoir, an investigation, and a manifesto
        Summary:“The crime of rape sizzles like a lightning strike. It pounces, flattens, destroys. A person stands whole, and in a moment of unexpected violence, that life, that body is gone. Award-winning writer and public health executive Michelle Bowdler’s memoir indicts how sexual violence has been addressed for decades in our society, asking whether rape is a crime given that it is the least reported major felony, least successfully prosecuted, and fewer than 3% of rapists ever spend a day in jail. Cases are closed before they are investigated and DNA evidence sits for years untested and disregarded Rape in this country is not treated as a crime of brutal violence but as a parlor game of he said / she said. It might be laughable if it didn’t work so much of the time. Given all this, it seems fair to ask whether rape is actually a crime.”



      • Lepore, Jill
        If then : how the simulmatics corporation invented the future
        Summary:“The Simulmatics Corporation, founded in 1959, mined data, targeted voters, accelerated news, manipulated consumers, destabilized politics, and disordered knowledge–decades before Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Cambridge Analytica. Silicon Valley likes to imagine it has no past but the scientists of Simulmatics are the long-dead grandfathers of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Borrowing from psychological warfare, they used computers to predict and direct human behavior, deploying their “People Machine” from New York, Cambridge, and Saigon for clients that included John Kennedy’s presidential campaign, the New York Times, Young & Rubicam, and, during the Vietnam War, the Department of Defense. Jill Lepore, distinguished Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, unearthed from the archives the almost unbelievable story of this long-vanished corporation, and of the women hidden behind it. In the 1950s and 1960s, Lepore argues, Simulmatics invented the future by building the machine in which the world now finds itself trapped and tormented, algorithm by algorithm”


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    Picture Books for Hanukkah


  • Kimmel, Eric A.
    Simon and the bear : a Hanukkah story
    Summary:Stranded on an iceberg on his way to America, Simon remembers his mother’s parting words and lights the first candle on his menorah while praying for a miracle, which soon arrives in the form of a friendly polar bear.


  • Simon, Richard
    Oskar and the eight blessings
    Summary:A young Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany arrives in New York City on the seventh night of Hanukkah and receives small acts of kindness while exploring the city.


  • Martin, David
    Hanukkah lights
    Summary:Beautiful illustrations and simple language bring the holidays to life.


  • Jenkins, Emily
    All-of-a-kind family Hanukkah
    Summary:In 1912 New York, Gertie feels left out while Mama and her four older sisters cook Hanukkah dinner, but Papa comes home and asks her help with an important task.


  • Koster, Gloria
    Little Red Ruthie : a Hanukkah tale
    Summary:Heading through the forest to her Bubbe Basha’s house to make latkes (potato pancakes) on the first night of Hanukkah, Little Red Ruthie encounters a hungry wolf. Includes a recipe for latkes.


  • Ehrenberg, Pamela
    Queen of the Hanukkah dosas
    Summary:A boy is worried that his little sister’s climbing will spoil the first night of Hanukkah, when his family combines his father’s Jewish traditions with his mother’s East Indian cooking.

  • Levine, Arthur A.
    The Hanukkah magic of Nate Gadol
    Summary:Introducing Nate Gadol, a new larger-than-life holiday hero who brings Hanukkah wonder and generosity to all those in need. He is a generous spirit whose magic can make things last exactly as long an they’re needed. When the Glaser family immigrates to the United States, their first Hanukkah looks like it will be a meager one. And their neighbors are struggling too, with money scarce and Christmas around the corner. Even Santa’s spirits are running low. Luckily, Nate Gadol has enough magic to make this a miraculous holiday for all.

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