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Voices in the Ocean

Susan Casey

While swimming off the coast of Maui, Susan Casey was surrounded by a pod of spinner dolphins. It inspired her to embark on a two-year global adventure to explore the nature of these remarkable beings and their complex relationship to humanity. 

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The Elephant of Belfast

S. Kirk Walsh

Belfast, October 1940. Twenty-year-old zookeeper Hettie Quin arrives at the city docks in time to meet her new charge: an orphaned three-year-old Indian elephant named Violet. As Violet adjusts to her new solitary life in captivity and Hettie mourns the recent loss of her sister and the abandonment of her father, new storm clouds gather. The relative peace is shattered by air-raid sirens on the evening of Easter Tuesday 1941. Dodging the debris and carnage of the Luftwaffe attack, Hettie runs to the zoo to make sure that Violet is unharmed. The harrowing ordeal and ensuing aftermath set the pair on a surprising path that highlights the indelible, singular bond that often brings mankind and animals together during horrifying times. 

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Eight Bears

Gloria Dickie

In Eight Bears, journalist Gloria Dickie embarks on a globe-trotting journey to explore each bear's story, whisking readers from the cloud forests of the Andes to the ice floes of the Arctic; from the jungles of India to the backwoods of the Rocky Mountain West. She meets with key figures on the frontlines of modern conservation efforts--the head of a rescue center for sun and moon bears freed from bile farms, a biologist known as Papa Panda, who has led China's panda-breeding efforts for almost four decades, a conservationist retraining a military radar system to detect and track polar bears near towns--to reveal the unparalleled challenges bears face as they contend with a rapidly changing climate and encroaching human populations.

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Remarkably Bright Creatures

Shelby Van Pelt

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus forms a remarkable friendship with Tova. Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

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Of Time and Turtles

Sy Montgomery

When acclaimed naturalist Sy Montgomery and wildlife artist Matt Patterson arrive at Turtle Rescue League, they are greeted by hundreds of turtles recovering from injury and illness. Endangered by cars and highways, pollution and poachers, these turtles--with wounds so severe that even veterinarians would have dismissed them as fatal--are given a second chance at life. Sy and Matt immerse themselves in the delicate work of protecting turtle nests, incubating eggs, rescuing sea turtles, and releasing hatchlings to their homes in the wild. 

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Chasing Me to My Grave

Winfred Rembert

Chasing Me to My Grave presents Winfred Rembert’s breathtaking body of work alongside his story, as told to Tufts Philosopher Erin I. Kelly. Rembert calls forth vibrant scenes of Black life on Cuthbert, Georgia’s Hamilton Avenue, where he first glimpsed the possibility of a life outside the cotton field. As he pays tribute, exuberant and heartfelt, to Cuthbert’s Black community and the people, including Patsy, who helped him to find the courage to revisit a traumatic past, Rembert brings to life the promise and the danger of Civil Rights protest, the brutalities of incarceration, his search for his mother’s love, and the epic bond he found with Patsy.

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The Ugly Cry

Danielle Henderson

Abandoned at ten years old by a mother who chose her drug-addicted, abusive boyfriend, Danielle was raised by grandparents who thought their child-rearing days had ended in the 1960s. Under the eye-rolling, foul-mouthed, loving tutelage of her uncompromising grandmother—and the horror movies she obsessively watched—Danielle grew into a tall, awkward, Sassy-loving teenager who wore black eyeliner as lipstick and was struggling with the aftermath of her mother’s choices. But she also learned that she had the strength and smarts to save herself, her grandmother gifting her a faith in her own capabilities that the world would not have most Black girls possess.
 

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Notes from a Young Black Chef

Kwame Onwuachi

By the time he was twenty-seven years old, Kwame Onwuachi had opened—and closed—one of the most talked about restaurants in America. He had sold drugs in New York and been shipped off to rural Nigeria to “learn respect.” He had launched his own catering company with twenty thousand dollars made from selling candy on the subway and starred on Top Chef. Through it all, Onwuachi’s love of food and cooking remained a constant, even when, as a young chef, he was forced to grapple with just how unwelcoming the food world can be for people of color.

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Sharks Don't Sink

Jasmin Graham

When Jasmin Graham, an award-winning young shark scientist, started to feel that the traditional path to becoming a marine biologist was pulling her under, she remembered this important lesson: keep moving forward. If navigating the choppy waters of traditional academic study was no longer worth it, then that meant creating an ocean of her own. Jasmin joined with three other Black women to form Minorities in Shark Sciences (MISS), an organization dedicated to providing support and opportunities for other young women of color. She became an independent researcher: a rogue shark scientist, seeking ways to keep these extraordinary endangered creatures swimming free—just like her.

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Sink

Joseph Earl Thomas

Stranded within an ever-shifting family's desperate but volatile attempts to love, saddled with a mercurial mother mired in crack addiction, and demeaned daily for his perceived weakness, Joseph Earl Thomas grew up feeling he was under constant threat. In a series of exacting and fierce vignettes, Thomas guides readers through the unceasing cruelty that defined his circumstances, laying bare the depths of his loneliness and illuminating the vital reprieve geek culture offered him. Even in the depths of isolation, there were unexpected moments of joy carved out, from summers where he was freed from the injurious structures of his surroundings to the first glimpses of kinship he caught on his journey to becoming a Pokémon master. 

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Hunger

Roxane Gay

In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,” Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she explores her past—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers along on her journey to understand and ultimately save herself.

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How We Fight for Our Lives

Saeed Jones

Haunted and haunting, How We Fight for Our Lives is a stunning coming-of-age memoir about a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence—into tumultuous relationships with his family, into passing flings with lovers, friends, and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another—and to one another—as we fight to become ourselves.

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The Pretty One

Keah Brown

In The Pretty One, Brown gives a contemporary and relatable voice to the disabled—so often portrayed as mute, weak, or isolated. With clear, fresh, and light-hearted prose, these essays explore everything from her relationship with her able-bodied identical twin (called “the pretty one” by friends) to navigating romance; her deep affinity for all things pop culture—and her disappointment with the media’s distorted view of disability; and her declaration of self-love with the viral hashtag #DisabledAndCute.
 

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Born a Crime

Trevor Noah

Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.
 

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A Knock at Midnight

Brittany K. Barnett

Brittany K. Barnett was only a law student when she came across the case that would change her life forever—that of Sharanda Jones, single mother, business owner, and, like Brittany, Black daughter of the rural South. A victim of America’s devastating war on drugs, Sharanda had been torn away from her young daughter and was serving a life sentence without parole—for a first-time drug offense. Moved by Sharanda’s plight, Brittany set to work to gain her freedom. Ultimately, her path transformed her understanding of injustice in the courts, of genius languishing behind bars, and the very definition of freedom itself.

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Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. 

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Finding Me

Viola Davis

In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever. As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be . . . you.

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Heavy

Kiese Laymon

In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to his trek to New York as a young college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, Laymon asks himself, his mother, his nation, and us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free.

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Men We Reaped

Jesmyn Ward

In five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five young men in her life to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. Dealing with these losses, one after another, made Jesmyn ask the question: Why? And as she began to write about the experience of living through all the dying, she realized the truth -- and it took her breath away. Her brother and her friends all died because of who they were and where they were from, because they lived with a history of racism and economic struggle that fostered drug addiction and the dissolution of family and relationships. Jesmyn knew she had to write about her community, to write their stories and her own.

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I Never Had it Made

Jackie Robinson

One of baseball's greatest legends tells his straightforward story about what it took to break into the white world of professional sports. Tremendous talent and a momentous opportunity brought him to the historic position of being the first black man to play in the major leagues. 

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The Pages

Hugo Hamilton

One old copy of the novel Rebellion sits in Lena Knecht’s tote bag, about to accompany her on a journey from New York to Berlin in search of a clue to the hand-drawn map on its last page. It is the brilliantly captivating voice of this novel—a first edition nearly burned by Nazis in May 1933—that is our narrator. The Pages brings together a multitude of dazzling characters, real and invented, in a sweeping story of survival, chance, and the joys and struggles of love. With vivid evocations of Germany under Nazism and today, The Pages dramatically illuminates the connections between past and present as it looks at censorship, oppression, and violence. 

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The Man Who Loved Books Too Much

Allison Hoover Bartlett

Rare-book theft is even more widespread than fine-art theft. Most thieves, of course, steal for profit. John Charles Gilkey steals purely for the love of books. In an attempt to understand him better, journalist Allison Hoover Bartlett plunged herself into the world of book lust and discovered just how dangerous it can be.

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The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks

Shauna Robinson

Maggie Banks's life is a bit of a mess. So when her best friend asks for help running her struggling bookstore in the quaint town of Bells River, Maggie jumps on the opportunity. Maggie's not prepared for the strict rules enforced by the local historical society: the bookstore is only allowed to sell "classics." Catering to the stories folks actually want to read and making fun of the stuffy "classics", Maggie falls in love with books and realizes the power stories have to build community. But with a historical society itching to catch her and shut her down for good, and a budding relationship with an adorably strait-laced inspector weighing on her conscience, everything starts to fall apart. Then Maggie unearths a town secret that could ruin everything. 

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When Books Went to War

Molly Guptill Manning

When America entered World War II in 1941, we faced an enemy that had banned and burned 100 million books. Outraged librarians launched a campaign to send free books to American troops and gathered 20 million hardcover donations. In 1943, the War Department and the publishing industry stepped in with an extraordinary program: 120 million small, lightweight paperbacks for troops to carry in their pockets and rucksacks in every theater of war. Soldiers read them while waiting to land at Normandy, in hellish trenches in the midst of battles in the Pacific, in field hospitals, and on long bombing flights. When Books Went to War is the inspiring story of the Armed Services Editions, and a treasure for history buffs and book lovers alike.
 

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The Case of the Missing Books

Ian Sansom

Israel Armstrong is a passionate soul, lured to Ireland by the promise of an exciting new career. Alas, the job that awaits him is not quite what he had in mind. Still, Israel is not one to dwell on disappointment, as he prepares to drive a mobile library around a small, damp Irish town. After all, the scenery is lovely, the people are charming—but where are the books? The rolling library's 15,000 volumes have mysteriously gone missing, and it's up to Israel to discover who would steal them . . . and why. 

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Ex Libris

Michiko Kakutani

Readers will discover novels and memoirs by some of the most gifted writers working today; favorite classics worth reading or rereading; and nonfiction works, both old and new, that illuminate our social and political landscape and some of today’s most pressing issues, from climate change to medicine to the consequences of digital innovation. There are essential works in American history; books that address timely cultural dynamics; classics of children’s literature; and novels by acclaimed contemporary writers like Don DeLillo, William Gibson, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Ian McEwan.

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The Shadow of the Wind

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.

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Read Until You Understand

Farah Jasmine Griffin

Farah Jasmine Griffin has taken to her heart the phrase "read until you understand," a line her father, who died when she was nine, wrote in a note to her. She has made it central to this book about love of the majestic power of words and love of the magnificence of Black life. Griffin has spent years rooted in the culture of Black genius and the legacy of books that her father left her. A beloved professor, she has devoted herself to passing these works and their wisdom on to generations of students. Griffin entwines memoir, history, and art while she keeps her finger on the pulse of the present, asking us to grapple with the continuing struggle for Black freedom and the ongoing project that is American democracy. 

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The Cat who Saved Books

Sōsuke Natsukawa

Bookish high school student Rintaro Natsuki is about to close the secondhand bookstore he inherited from his beloved bookworm grandfather. Then, a talking cat appears with an unusual request. The feline asks for--or rather, demands--the teenager's help in saving books with him. The world is full of lonely books left unread and unloved, and the cat and Rintaro must liberate them from their neglectful owners.

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Read Dangerously

Azar Nafisi

What is the role of literature in an era when one political party wages continual war on writers and the press? In this galvanizing guide to literature as resistance, Nafisi seeks to answer these questions. Drawing on her experiences as a woman and voracious reader living in the Islamic Republic of Iran, her life as an immigrant in the United States, and her role as literature professor in both countries, she crafts an argument for why, in a genuine democracy, we must engage with the enemy, and how literature can be a vehicle for doing so. 

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Ink Blood Sister Scribe

Emma Törzs

For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of ancient and rare books. Books that let a person walk through walls or manipulate the elements--books of magic that half-sisters Joanna and Esther have been raised to revere and protect. All magic comes with a price, though, and for years the sisters have been separated. Esther has fled to a remote base in Antarctica to escape the fate that killed her own mother, and Joanna's isolated herself in their family home in Vermont, devoting her life to the study of these cherished volumes. But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book Joanna has never seen before, the sisters must reunite to preserve their family legacy. In the process, they'll uncover a world of magic far bigger and more dangerous than they ever imagined, and all the secrets their parents kept hidden; secrets that span centuries, continents, and even other libraries.

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Booked to Die

John Dunning

Denver homicide detective Cliff Janeway may not always play by the book, but he’s an avid collector of rare and first editions. Bobby Westfall is a local bookscout, a gentle and quiet man who has sold enough valuable books to keep himself and his cats fed and housed. When Bobby is murdered, Janeway would like nothing better than to rearrange the suspect’s spine. But the suspect, local lowlife Jackie Newton, is a master at eluding the law, and Janeway’s wrathful brand of off-duty justice costs him his badge. Turning to his lifelong passion, Janeway opens a small bookshop—all the while searching for evidence to put Newton away. When prized volumes in a highly sought-after collection begin to appear, so do dead bodies. 

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Why We Read

Shannon Reed

Shannon Reed, a longtime teacher, lifelong reader, and New Yorker contributor, gets it. With one simple goal in mind, she makes the case that we should read for pleasure above all else. In this whip-smart, laugh-out-loud-funny collection, Reed shares surprising stories from her life as a reader and the poignant ways in which books have impacted her students. From the varied novels she cherishes (Gone Girl, Their Eyes Were Watching God) to the ones she didn't (Tess of the d'Urbervilles), Reed takes us on a rollicking tour through the comforting world of literature, celebrating the books we love, the readers who love them, and the ways in which literature can transform us for the better.

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Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family." But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn't live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. 

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The Reading List

Sara Nisha Adams

Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It's a list of novels that she's never heard of before. She impulsively decides to read every book on the list, one after the other. As each story gives up its magic, the books transport Aleisha from the painful realities she's facing at home. When widower Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to forge a connection with his bookworm granddaughter Priya, Aleisha passes along the reading list hoping that it will be a lifeline for him too. Slowly, the shared books create a connection between two lonely souls, as fiction helps them escape their grief and everyday troubles and find joy again.

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Sonic the Hedgehog: 5-Minute Stories

Jake Black

Follow the adventures of Sonic and his best friends as they fight Dr. Eggman and save the day! Filled with exciting stories and awesome illustrations, this book is the perfect read for bedtime, when you're on the go, or anytime in between!
 

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Pokémon Timelines

Katherine Andreou

This is the ultimate visual guide to the Pokémon animated series' history, shown through detailed timelines. Packed with fascinating facts, images, and essential details, fans can chart Ash's journey, revisit exciting storylines, and explore familiar regions in fantastic detail.

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Look and Cook Breakfast

Valorie Fisher

Designed for children who can’t yet read, Look and Cook Breakfast: A First Book of Recipes in Pictures is a must-have introduction to cooking for kids. Following the same easy-to-read visual layout of Look and Cook Snacks, this cookbook features delicious sweet and savory breakfast recipes for the whole family to enjoy—homemade granola, zucchini muffins, and more! 
 

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Teeny Tiendas: The Flower Shop/La Florería

Lourdes Heuer

Welcome to Mrs. Rosario's flower shop.
Bienvenido a la florería de la Señora Rosario.

 

In Mrs. Rosario's flower shop, there are so many beautiful flowers for sale--from roses and rosemary to lilacs and lilies! Learn their names in both English and Spanish, then pick your favorite for a special gathering at the senior center. Will you choose a pretty daisy/margarita? Or a fragrant hydrangea/hortensia? They are all so lovely! 

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Almost Underwear

Jonathan Roth

With NASA photos and playful illustrations throughout, here is an incredible slice of hidden history and an immersive introduction to the science of air and space for all ages. One day in 1903 the Wright brothers entered a department store in Ohio to buy a bolt of fabric. The plain muslin cloth was most often used to make underwear. As it happens, the Wright brothers were about to wrap the simple cloth around the ribs of a mechanical 'wing' and dramatically change the world. Sixty-six years later, in 1969, Neil Armstrong took a big leap onto the moon. With him was a swatch of the exact fabric the bicycle mechanics had purchased in 1903. Fifty-two years after that, in 2021, a remote-controlled car-sized explorer landed on Mars. Attached to the underside of a cable was a tiny piece of very old cloth-cloth that had almost become underwear. Almost Underwear is the story of that incredible piece of fabric, and the historic 'firsts' it stitches together.

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The Swifts: A Gallery of Rogues

Beth Lincoln

Now that the family reunion is over and the murderer has been caught, Shenanigan Swift can return to important projects, like searching for the long-lost family treasure. But trouble always finds Shenanigan, and when a valuable painting is stolen from Swift House by a group of eccentric art thieves known as Ouvolpo, she is determined to get it back—even if it means chasing them all the way to Paris. A new adventure is about to begin, and Shenanigan’s sleuthing skills will soon be tested like never before.
 

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The Bakery Dragon

Devin Elle Kurtz

Ember has always been different from the other dragons. His fearsome roar sounds more like a polite sneeze, and when he breathes fire, the villagers just pat his head and say awwww.

Ember fears he’ll never collect a respectable hoard of gold until a chance encounter with a baker causes his fortunes to turn (and his stomach to grumble). As the little dragon soon discovers, the gold you make is way better than the gold you steal—and gold that is shared? That’s best of all.
 

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Gifts from the Garbage Truck

Andrew Larsen

What if everywhere you looked, you saw something to make? Instead of seeing something broken, you saw something to fix? Instead of seeing something to throw out, you saw something to give away? This is how Nelson Molina sees the world. A former employee for the New York City sanitation department, Nelson saved over 45,000 objects from the garbage to fix and show his community through his museum, Treasures in the Trash.

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Rolling On

Jamie Sumner

It’s the very end of eighth grade and all everyone can talk about is high school—everyone except Ellie Cowan. Ellie wants to freeze time. Middle school was epic. She moved to Oklahoma, made her best friends, won a baking championship, quit a beauty pageant, and dominated Putt-Putt golf in her wheelchair.

But now her feelings for her best friend Bert are starting to change. When did Bert get so cute? And why are all the other girls suddenly noticing, too? As if that isn’t enough to deal with, Grandpa’s health takes a turn for the worse. So what do you do when you don’t know how to hold on and when to let go?

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Beetle & the Hollowbones

Aliza Layne

In the eerie town of ‘Allows, some people get to be magical sorceresses, while other people have their spirits trapped in the mall for all ghastly eternity.

Then there’s twelve-year-old goblin-witch Beetle, who’s caught in between. She’d rather skip being homeschooled completely and spend time with her best friend, Blob Glost. But the mall is getting boring, and B.G. is cursed to haunt it, tethered there by some unseen force. And now Beetle’s old best friend, Kat, is back in town for a sorcery apprenticeship with her Aunt Hollowbone. Kat is everything Beetle wants to be: beautiful, cool, great at magic, and kind of famous online. Beetle’s quickly being left in the dust.

But Kat’s mentor has set her own vile scheme in motion. If Blob Ghost doesn’t escape the mall soon, their afterlife might be coming to a very sticky end. Now, Beetle has less than a week to rescue her best ghost, encourage Kat to stand up for herself, and confront the magic she’s been avoiding for far too long. And hopefully ride a broom without crashing.

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Little Ghost Makes a Friend

Maggie Edkins Willis

Little Ghost and his mom have been happily haunting their creaky old house for years, just the two of them. When a new girl moves in next door, Little Ghost wants to introduce himself. But making friends can be scary…until he comes up with the perfect plan: he’s going to invite her over for a Halloween party! But what costume will make her want to be friends with him?

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Half-Minute Horrors

Susan Rich

Dare to find out with Half-Minute Horrors, a collection of deliciously terrifying tales and creepy illustrations by an exceptional selection of writers and illustrators. Each one takes only thirty seconds to read ... but the chills will take much longer to fade.

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The Carrefour Curse

Dianne K. Salerni

Twelve-year-old Garnet regrets that she doesn’t know her family. Her mother has done her best to keep it that way, living far from the rest of the magical Carrefour clan and their dark, dangerous mansion known as Crossroad House.

But when Garnet finally gets summoned to the estate, it isn’t quite what she hoped for. Her relatives are strange and quarrelsome, each room in Crossroad House is more dilapidated than the last, and she can’t keep straight which dusty hallways and cobwebbed corners are forbidden.

Then Garnet learns the family secret: their dying patriarch fights to retain his life by stealing power from others. Every accident that isn’t an accident, every unexpected illness and unexplained disappearance grants Jasper Carrefour a little more time. While the Carrefours squabbles over who will inherit his role when (if) he dies, Garnet encounters evidence of an even deeper curse. Was she brought to Crossroad House as part of the curse . . . or is she meant to break it?

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There's a Ghost in this House

Oliver Jeffers

Hello, come in. Maybe you can help me?

A young girl lives in a haunted house, but has never seen a ghost. Are they white with holes for eyes? Are they hard to see? She'd love to know! Step inside and turn the transparent pages to help her on an entertaining ghost hunt, from behind the sofa, right up to the attic.

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Blood City Rollers

V.P. Anderson

Ice-skater Mina is on a one-track path to Olympic gold and glory—that is, until she totally wipes out at her biggest competition, and is kinda-sorta-kidnapped by undead kids on roller skates. Sucked into the high stakes world of Paranormal Roller Derby, she finds herself "recruited" by a squad of vampires who need a human player to complete their team—just in time to save the league from losing it all.

Between learning to play derby well enough to kick butt on the track, crushing hard on the dreamy team captain, and navigating the spooky rules of the supernatural, how can Mina go from striving to be a ten alone, to becoming one of nine chaotic bodies forming a perfectly-imperfect team? Forget being the best. Will she be enough to help her new friends survive the season?

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The Skull

Jon Klassen

In a big abandoned house, on a barren hill, lives a skull. A brave girl named Otilla has escaped from terrible danger and run away, and when she finds herself lost in the dark forest, the lonely house beckons. Her host, the skull, is afraid of something too, something that comes every night. Can brave Otilla save them both?

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Ghosts Don't Eat Potato Chips

Marcia Thornton Jones

Eddie and Howie go to visit Eddie's great-aunt Mathilda. But when Howie sees a shadowy face in the window -- and when his potato chips start to form mysterious trails -- the Bailey School kids are spooked. Could a ghost be living in the attic?

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Peril at Price Manor

Laura Parnum

Halle dreams of becoming a scream queen. She practices her loudest scream every day and has learned a lot from studying the horror movies of her favorite director, Maximus Price. Maximus lives just outside town, and when the chance to go to his home arises, Halle grabs it with both hands. She doesn’t realize that real life horrors await her at Price Manor.

Paisley and Argyle, Maximus’s twin children, think that the creepy, squid-like creatures that have attached themselves to the faces of the manor’s staff, putting them in a zombie-like stupor, are just another one of their prankster dad’s tricks. When Halle arrives and is attacked by one of the creatures, she meets the twins and assures them that this is no joke. The three kids will have to work together using all of their unusual talents to defeat the monsters—and maybe even save the world.

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Taxi Ghost

Sophie Escabasse

Adèle just wants to spend her winter break at the library, cozied up with her favorite books, and completely forgetting abut her friends who are all traveling to warmer climates. Unfortunately, life has other plans...not only does Adèle get her first period...but she learns she comes from a long line of mediums!

And if seeing ghosts wasn't enough of a surprise, Adèle learns that not only can she interact with them, but apparently, they've been using her sister's car to get around the city for years! When the ghosts won't leave her alone Adèle starts to get to know about them and their problems. Maybe helping them out will be just what she needs for an exciting winter break!
 

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Sir Simon: Super Scarer

Cale Atkinson

Meet Sir Simon, Super Scarer. He's a professional ghost who has been transferred to his first house. And just in time! He was getting tired of haunting bus stops and forests and potatoes. And to top it off, this house is occupied by an old lady -- they're the easiest to haunt!

But things don't go as planned when it turns out a KID comes with this old lady. Chester spots Simon immediately and peppers him with questions. Simon is exasperated. . . until he realizes he can trick Chester into doing his ghost chores. Spooky sounds, footsteps in the attic, creaks on the stairs -- these things don't happen on their own, you know!

After a long night of haunting, it seems that maybe Chester isn't cut out to be a ghost, so Simon decides to help with Chester's human chores. Turns out Simon isn't cut out for human chores either.

But maybe they're both cut out to be friends . . .

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Ghostlight

Kenneth Oppel

Rebecca Strand was just sixteen when she and her father fell to their deaths from the top of the Gibraltar Point Lighthouse in 1839. Just how they fell-or were they pushed?-remains a mystery. And their ghosts haunt the lighthouse to this day ...

Gabe tells this story every day when he gives the ghost tour on Toronto Island. He tries to make it scary enough to satisfy the tourists, but he doesn't actually believe in ghosts - until he finds himself face to face with Rebecca Strand. The true story of her death is far more terrifying than any ghost tale Gabe has told. Rebecca reveals that her father was a member of the Order, a secret society devoted to protecting the world from 'the wakeful and wicked dead' - malevolent spirits like Viker, the ghost responsible for their deaths. But the Order has disappeared, and Viker's ghost is growing ever stronger. Now Gabe and his friends must find a way to stop Viker before they all become lost souls ...
 

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All the Lovely Bad Ones Graphic Novel

Mary Downing Hahn

Travis and his sister, Corey, can't resist a good trick. When they learn that their grandmother's quiet Vermont inn, where they're spending the summer, has a history of ghost sightings, they decide to do a little "haunting" of their own. Before long, their supernatural pranks have tourists flocking to the inn, and business booms.

But Travis and Corey soon find out that theirs aren't the only ghosts at Fox Hill Inn. Their thoughtless games have awakened something dangerous, something that should have stayed asleep. Can these siblings lay to rest the restless spirits they’ve disturbed?

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Creepy Pair of Underwear!

Aaron Reynolds

Jasper Rabbit is NOT a little bunny anymore. He’s not afraid of the dark, and he’s definitely not afraid of something as silly as underwear. But when the lights go out, suddenly his new big rabbit underwear glows in the dark. A ghoulish, greenish glow. If Jasper didn’t know any better he’d say his undies were a little, well, creepy. Jasper’s not scared obviously, he’s just done with creepy underwear. But after trying everything to get rid of them, they keep coming back!

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The Bellwoods Game

Celia Krampien

Everyone knows Fall Hollow is haunted. It has been ever since Abigail Snook went into the woods many years ago, never to be seen again. Since then, it’s tradition for the sixth graders at Beckett Elementary to play the Bellwoods Game on Halloween night. Three kids are chosen to go into the woods. Whoever rings the bell there wins the game and saves the town for another year, but if Abigail’s ghost captures the players first, the spirit is let loose to wreak havoc on Fall Hollow—or so the story goes.

Now that it’s Bailee’s year to play, she can finally find out what really happens. And legend has it the game’s winner gets a wish. Maybe, just maybe, if Bailee wins, she can go back to the way things used to be before her grandma got sick and everyone at school started hating her. But when the night begins, everything the kids thought they knew about the game—and each other—is challenged. One thing’s for sure: something sinister is at play…waiting for them all in the woods.

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Love Sugar Magic: A Dash of Trouble

Anna Meriano

Leonora Logroño’s family owns the most beloved bakery in Rose Hill, Texas, spending their days conjuring delicious cookies and cakes for any occasion. And no occasion is more important than the annual Dia de los Muertos festival.

Leo hopes that this might be the year that she gets to help prepare for the big celebration—but, once again, she is told she’s too young. Sneaking out of school and down to the bakery, she discovers that her mother, aunt, and four older sisters have in fact been keeping a big secret: they’re brujas—witches of Mexican ancestry—who pour a little bit of sweet magic into everything that they bake.  

Leo knows that she has magical ability as well and is more determined than ever to join the family business—even if she can’t let her mama and hermanas know about it yet.

And when her best friend, Caroline, has a problem that needs solving, Leo has the perfect opportunity to try out her craft. It’s just one little spell, after all…what could possibly go wrong?

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Turning Pages

Sonia Sotomayor

As the first Latina Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor has inspired young people around the world to reach for their dreams. But what inspired her? For young Sonia, the answer was books! They were her mirrors, her maps, her friends, and her teachers. They helped her to connect with her family in New York and in Puerto Rico, to deal with her diabetes diagnosis, to cope with her father's death, to uncover the secrets of the world, and to dream of a future for herself in which anything was possible.

 

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Invisible: A Graphic Novel

Christina Diaz Gonzalez

Can five overlooked kids make one big difference?

There's George: the brain

Sara: the loner

Dayara: the tough kid

Nico: the rich kid

And Miguel: the athlete

And they're stuck together when they're forced to complete their school's community service hours. Although they're sure they have nothing in common with one another, some people see them as all the same . . . just five Spanish-speaking kids.

Then they meet someone who truly needs their help, and they must decide whether they are each willing to expose their own secrets to help . . . or if remaining invisible is the only way to survive middle school.

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Barrio Rising

María Dolores Águila

Barrio Logan, one of San Diego’s oldest Chicane neighborhoods, once brimmed with families and stretched all the way to the glorious San Diego Bay. But in the decades after WWII, the community lost their beach and bayfront to factories, junkyards, and an interstate that divided the neighborhood and forced around 5,000 people out of their homes. Then on April 22, 1970, residents discovered that the construction crew they believed was building a park—one the city had promised them years ago—was actually breaking ground for a police station. That’s when they knew it was time to make their voices heard.
 

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Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpré

Anika Aldamuy Denise

An inspiring picture book biography of storyteller, puppeteer, and New York City’s first Puerto Rican librarian, who championed bilingual literature.

When she came to America in 1921, Pura Belpré carried the cuentos folklóricos of her Puerto Rican homeland. Finding a new home at the New York Public Library as a bilingual assistant, she turned her popular retellings into libros and spread story seeds across the land. Today, these seeds have grown into a lush landscape as generations of children and storytellers continue to share her tales and celebrate Pura’s legacy.

 

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¡Vamos! Let's Celebrate Halloween and Día de Los Muertos

Raúl the Third

Little Lobo is celebrating two big holidays this fall!

On Halloween, Little Lobo and his friends dress up in costumes, trick-or-treat for candy, and share spooky stories. Then everyone in the town prepares food, drinks, and other gifts and decorates the cemetery with ofrendas so they can enjoy Día de los Muertos with the spirits of the people they love. Join Little Lobo and his friends as they celebrate!

 

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My Papi Has a Motorcycle

Isabel Quintero

When Daisy Ramona zooms around her neighborhood with her papi on his motorcycle, she sees the people and places she's always known. She also sees a community that is rapidly changing around her.

But as the sun sets purple-blue-gold behind Daisy Ramona and her papi, she knows that the love she feels will always be there.

 

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Celebrate the Day of the Dead!

Diane de Anda

Cristina is excited to celebrate Día de los Muertos with her brother, Carlos, and their family. Young readers can follow along as everyone gets ready to remember their loved ones who are no longer with them.
 

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Mexikid

Pedro Martín

Pedro Martín has grown up hearing stories about his abuelito—his legendary crime-fighting, grandfather who was once a part of the Mexican Revolution! But that doesn't mean Pedro is excited at the news that Abuelito is coming to live with their family. After all, Pedro has 8 brothers and sisters and the house is crowded enough! Still, Pedro piles into the Winnebago with his family for a road trip to Mexico to bring Abuelito home, and what follows is the trip of a lifetime, one filled with laughs and heartache. Along the way, Pedro finally connects with his abuelito and learns what it means to grow up and find his grito.

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Gustavo, the Shy Ghost

Flavia Z. Drago

Gustavo is good at doing all sorts of ghostly things: walking through walls, making objects fly, and glowing in the dark. And he loves almost nothing more than playing beautiful music on his violin. But Gustavo is shy, and some things are harder for him to do, like getting in a line to buy eye scream or making friends with other monsters. Whenever he tries getting close to them, he realizes they just can’t see him. Now that the Day of the Dead is fast approaching, what can he do to make them notice him and to share with them something he loves? 

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Tumble

Celia C. Pérez

Twelve-year-old Adela “Addie” Ramírez has a big decision to make when her stepfather proposes adoption. Addie loves Alex, the only father figure she’s ever known, but with a new half brother due in a few months and a big school theater performance on her mind, everything suddenly feels like it’s moving too fast. She has a million questions, and the first is about the young man in the photo she found hidden away in her mother’s things.

 

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Islandborn

Junot Díaz

Every kid in Lola's school was from somewhere else.
Hers was a school of faraway places.
 
So when Lola's teacher asks the students to draw a picture of where their families immigrated from, all the kids are excited. Except Lola. She can't remember The Island—she left when she was just a baby. But with the help of her family and friends, and their memories—joyous, fantastical, heartbreaking, and frightening—Lola's imagination takes her on an extraordinary journey back to The Island.  As she draws closer to the heart of her family's story, Lola comes to understand the truth of her abuela's words: “Just because you don't remember a place doesn't mean it's not in you.”
 
 

 

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Miss Quinces: A Graphic Novel

Kat Fajardo

Sue just wants to spend the summer reading and making comics at sleepaway camp with her friends, but instead she gets stuck going to Honduras to visit relatives with her parents and two sisters. They live way out in the country, which means no texting, no cable, and no Internet! The trip takes a turn for the worse when Sue's mother announces that they'll be having a surprise quinceanera for Sue, which is the last thing she wants. She can't imagine wearing a big, floofy, colorful dress! What is Sue going to do? And how will she survive all this "quality" time with her rambunctious family?

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Aniana del Mar Jumps In

Jasminne Mendez

Aniana del Mar belongs in the water like a dolphin belongs to the sea. But she and Papi keep her swim practices and meets hidden from Mami, who has never recovered from losing someone she loves to the water years ago. That is, until the day Ani’s stiffness and swollen joints mean she can no longer get out of bed, and Ani is forced to reveal just how important swimming is to her. Mami forbids her from returning to the water but Ani and her doctor believe that swimming along with medication will help Ani manage her disease. What follows is the journey of a girl who must grieve who she once was in order to rise like the tide and become the young woman she is meant to be. 

 

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La Guitarrista

Lucky Diaz

Strum! Strum! Strum! Get ready to rock with la guitarrista!

When Canta finds a guitar in the trash, she is one step closer to becoming a rock star. Even though the guitar is broken and she doesn't know how to play, nothing can stop Canta from going after her dreams!

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Leo's First Vote!

Christina Soontornvat

Leo's dad is voting in his first election as a naturalized US citizen, and he promises to take Leo to the polls with him. Leo can't wait! But, after his cousin Ray casts doubt on the importance of a single vote, it'll take Leo's class mock election results, as well as a talk with his dad to convince him that each and every vote matters.

 

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Amari and the Despicable Wonders

B. B. Alston

War has come to the supernatural world, and Amari’s two worst enemies are leading the charge.

Elaine Harlowe has manipulated her way into becoming prime minister, using her mind control ability to force the Bureau to take up her vicious grudge against magiciankind. Meanwhile, Dylan Van Helsing, the newly crowned leader of the League of Magicians—and Amari’s former partner—is after a destructive new power that would not only ensure the magicians’ victory . . . it would make him invincible.

 

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The Yellow Bus

Loren Long

There is a bright yellow bus who spends her days driving. She loves carrying children from one important place to another. Every morning they climb in... Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, giggle, giggle-patter. And they fill her with joy.

As time passes, things change. The Yellow Bus gets a new driver, a new route, and new passengers, young and old. Until one day the driving stops for good, and the Yellow Bus is left on her own. And yet, no matter where she is, the Yellow Bus still finds joy and discovery in the world around her.
 

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Mindy Kim and the Mid-Autumn Festival

Lyla Lee

After Mindy’s beloved haraboji (grandpa) passes away, Mindy, Dad, and Julie decide to go to Korea to be with family for the annual Chuseok celebration. The traditional mid-autumn festival is all about family and honoring one’s ancestors. And while everyone has gathered for a very sad reason, Mindy is determined to make her first official Chuseok one to remember.

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The House on Yeet Street

Preston Norton

When Aidan Cross yeeted his very secret journal into the house on Yeet Street, he also intended to yeet his feelings for his best friend, Kai, as far away as possible.

To Aidan's horror, his friends plan a sleepover at the haunted house the very next night. Terrance, Zephyr, and Kai are dead set on exploring local legend Farah Yeet's creepy mansion. Aidan just wants to survive the night and retrieve his mortifying love story before his friends find it.


 

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The Princess in Black and the Kitty Catastrophe

Shannon Hale

Duchess Wigtower had heard that pets are fun, but all her kitten has gotten her is nine lives' worth of problems. Eeeeek! It’s time for someone else to deal with this catastrophe. Princess Magnolia is thrilled when a kitten lands on her doorstep, but just as she’s about to play with Plumpkins (or should it be Hugmaster Floof?) the monster alarm goes off. When Princess Magnolia returns to her castle, her furry companion has carved up the wallpaper! In fact, each time Princess Magnolia leaves to help the Goat Avenger fight a very grouchy monster, her feline friend wreaks havoc. Has the Princess in Black finally met her match? 

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Meena Can't Wait

Farida Zaman

Meena is excited because today she's going to Nanu's house to drink tea and eat treats.

When Meena gets there, she's ready to get started...but her nanu tells her it's not time yet. Today they're going to have a very special Bengali tea called doodh cha, and they are going to make it together.

 

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Gracie Under the Waves

Linda Sue Park

Gracie loves snorkeling! She loves it so much, she convinces her parents to let her plan a family vacation to Roatán, Honduras, where they can all snorkel together. She even makes a new friend there. Now, if only her irritating little brother would leave her alone, everything would be perfect. Then Gracie hurts her leg, and all her carefully made plans start to come apart. Worse still, she learns the reef itself is in serious danger. Gracie wants to help the reef . . . but she’s just a kid. What can she do to make a difference? Fortunately, her new friend has a few ideas! 

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A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall

Jasmine Warga

A painting has been stolen…!

When Rami sees a floating girl in the museum, he knows he has seen her somewhere before. Then he realizes: She looks just like the girl in the painting that has gone missing. But how does her appearance connect to the theft?

Agatha the turtle knows—she has been watching from the garden. But she can’t exactly tell anyone…can she?

Will Rami, with the help of his classmate, Veda, be able to solve the mystery? The clues are all around them, but they’ll have to be brave enough to really look.

 

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The Plant Rescuer

Matthew Rivera

Manny comes from a long line of gardeners, and to him, the greatest gardener of all is his dad. Dad always knows what plants need. Even with no yard to garden in, he tends their small apartment into a lush jungle.

One day, the time comes for Manny to get his very own first plant! Dad trusts Manny to care for his new amigo, and Manny is determined to rise to the challenge. But watching Dad’s masterful work isn’t the same as knowing everything he knows, and Manny’s amigo keeps wilting, no matter what he tries! Dad would know what to do, but this is Manny’s plant, and he wants to be the one to save it.

 

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Pizza for Birds

Bob Shea

Look out, Bob--there's a new restaurant in town. Meet Ryan! This guy's got it all: The hippest hair! The coolest bike tricks! The wildest parties! And most awesome of all...PIZZA FOR BIRDS! Can Bob--the big cheese at the best birdseed restaurant around--cook up a recipe for disaster that'll stir the pot and push his rival to go south?

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Sesame Street Let's Cook Together

DK

Elmo, Cookie Monster, and their friends make food fun and introduce children to cooking with 40 recipes. Nurture healthy minds and bodies with this cookbook for little chefs and their families, and find out about healthy eating, cooking tools, and kitchen safety. Discover tips on how to involve children in food prep and cooking to help them establish healthy habits for life.
 

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Hello, Baby

Little Bee Books

Hola! Ni Hao! Marhaba! Bonjour! Say hello in fifteen different languages as babies all over the world play and enjoy their day. This informative board book introduces simple actions while teaching toddlers how to say "hello" in English, Chinese, French, Korean, Spanish, Arabic, German, Swahili, Navajo, Russian, sign language, Hindi, Portuguese, Japanese, and Italian. The bright photographs of happy children will capture the attention of any baby, and the pronunciation guide will help any reader learn new greetings with ease!

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The Souvenir Museum

Elizabeth McCracken

In these stories, the mysterious bonds of family are tested, transformed, fractured, and fortified. With sentences that crackle and spark and showcase her trademark wit, McCracken traces how our closely held desires--for intimacy, atonement, comfort--bloom and wither against the indifferent passing of time. Her characters embark on journeys that leave them indelibly changed--and so do her readers. The Souvenir Museum showcases the talents of one of our finest contemporary writers as she tenderly takes the pulse of our collective and individual lives.

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Full Throttle

Joe Hill

In this masterful collection of short fiction, Joe Hill dissects timeless human struggles in thirteen relentless tales of supernatural suspense, including "In The Tall Grass," one of two stories co-written with Stephen King, basis for the terrifying feature film from Netflix. Replete with shocking chillers, including two previously unpublished stories written expressly for this volume ("Mums" and "Late Returns") and another appearing in print for the first time ("Dark Carousel"), Full Throttle is a darkly imagined odyssey through the complexities of the human psyche. Hypnotic and disquieting, it mines our tormented secrets, hidden vulnerabilities, and basest fears, and demonstrates this exceptional talent at his very best.

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Everything Inside

Edwidge Danticat

A romance unexpectedly sparks between two wounded friends. A marriage ends for what seem like noble reasons, but with irreparable consequences. A young woman holds on to an impossible dream even as she fights for her survival. Two lovers reunite after unimaginable tragedy, both for their country and in their lives. A baby’s christening brings three generations of a family to a precarious dance between old and new. A man falls to his death in slow motion, reliving the defining moments of the life he is about to lose. Set in locales from Miami and Port-au-Prince to a small unnamed country in the Caribbean and beyond, here are eight emotionally absorbing stories, rich with hard-won wisdom and humanity. 

 

 

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